


PMD: Phantom Magic

by Owrrryyyyyyy



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Mystery Character(s), Psychological Drama, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28816980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owrrryyyyyyy/pseuds/Owrrryyyyyyy
Summary: Nearly 2 years after the events of the original persona 5, Ren Amamiya finds himself living an average life. Suddenly, he is called by Igor once again to fight a malevolent force similar to the God of Control heading a team of enemy persona users... In the world of Pokémon! Follow the leader of the Phantom Thieves through an unfamiliar world where anything could happen!
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	1. Return of the thief

_A long-nosed man sat alone at a desk in a room with black and blue walls, only accompanied by the ever present singing and piano. His most recent guest, the Leader of the Phantom Theives, had been a smashing success. He had nothing to be disappointed about. And yet, he longed for another go. Igor suddenly felt another presence with him and observed his surroundings. The default appearance of the velvet room hadn’t changed, and he had no attendant by his side, so he knew that it couldn’t be a guest. Suddenly, he found two small, beady red eyes looking back at him._

_“Ah.” Igor said, starting his usual routine. “Welcome to the velvet room. You are quite the intriguing guest, aren’t you?” Igor added a small chuckle for good measure. “You-_

_“What exactly do you mean by that? I wanted to be here, so I came. What’s intriguing about that? You’re irrational.”_

_Igor was taken aback. The creature before him was clearly not human, but that wasn’t unusual for the velvet room. What was unusual was the fact that this was the only other presence here. Its behavior,_ _as well, was alien to Igor. ‘Irrational’ was not how most reacted to him._

_“Well, you’re some kind of small animal. Most of my guests are human. And how exactly did you enter this place without permission?”_

_“I simply teleported in. And I’m aware that most who come here are human. You make contracts with them, correct? That’s what we discovered in our preliminary research into you.”_

_“I’m being researched?” Igor never expected that a group of demons could be powerful or organized enough to teleport directly to the velvet room to research him. Truly, whatever group that this creature hailed from was a potential adversary, perhaps to send a new guest after._

_“Correct. We first discovered you and the metaverse around two years ago in that massive disturbance in Japan. You had a group of humans prevent that anomaly.” The creature seemed to pause for a moment. “Your method of harnessing the hope and despair energy in humans is truly revolutionary. So why, we wondered, do you not bother harnessing it?”_

_Igor thought for a moment, then gave his rebuttal: “I have more that enough power to satisfy myself. I have no need for more. Besides, trying to ‘harvest’ that energy would most likely bring harm to the humans. It is necessary to restore the balance.”_

_“How irrational. Why value the lives of a few humans when there are so many out there? That energy could be put towards extending the life of the universe.”_

_Igor was swiftly offended. How could anyone suggest something so callous?_

_“They are my esteemed guests, thank you very much. Their lives hold far more value than any old human. And why extend the life of the universe? Are all things not meant to come to an end?”_

_“You’re even more irrational that I thought. Why give in to entropy? It’s best to harvest to energy of a few humans to fight it, even if it means an eternal battle.”_

_Suddenly, Igor had a more pressing question on his mind. “You’ve been doing exactly that under my nose, haven’t you?”_

_“Correct. We set up humans to fight a few shadows, only for them to become shadows in return, and then collect the energy let off by the defeated shadows. Ingenious system, is it not?”_

_Igor was beyond disgusted with this thing at this point. Had he come face-to-face with the source of shadows, who turned innocent humans into shadows? It seemed he had found cause to allow a new guest into the velvet room already. “I shall rise up a guest to defeat you, no matter how you try to subvert me!” He shouted angrily._

_“Well, that’s what I was hoping to discuss with you today. I wish to pit the humans you sent to reverse that anomaly against some of mine. I want to run an experiment.”_

_“I’ll only agree to your ‘experiment’ if you agree to cease your operations if my humans prove victorious.”_

_The small creature sighed. “You know, I haven’t even explained how I found you yet. I suppose it’s good that you can agree given certain conditions. Anyway,” the creature continued, “We recently developed technology that allows to observe alternate realities. To our surprise, we found that several groups of universes featured the rise of humanity without our intervention. We were looking around this universe when we found that massive anomaly I mentioned earlier. Tracing the energies of the humans led us directly to you, after accounting for background noise in the data. It’s taken quite a lot of energy to meet you directly, so I’d like to explain how we’d like to run the experiment.”_

_“Go on,” said Igor, wondering how anyone could view the world through such a cold lens._

_“I want to send 5 humans from each group to another particularly low-tech universe and have them engage with each other over a period of a little over a year. Collect some data from combat encounters. They’ll all be separate, so we can observe how they initially interpret this challenge. I’ve prepared this device for sending them there.” The creature then placed a small device on Igor’s desk. “This device sends them there and changes their appearance to match the locals. It won’t impact the abilities they gained in the contracts made with them.”_

_“And you agree to my terms if your twisted ‘experiment’ is a failure?” Igor asked._

_“Of course. This experiment is important to us, after all.” The creature replied. Igor suspected that this creature didn’t really mean those words, but there was no telling how it would react if he declined. “Very well. I will bring the Phantom thieves to this world in the way you described,” Igor replied._

_“All right. It was nice speaking to you,” the creature said as it seemingly vanished into the darkness. As it did, Igor knew that he had to make good on what he just said. “Let the game begin,” He said to himself, once again alone in the velvet room._

_\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

Off in a relatively unremarkable part of Japan, an older teen boy opened the door to his apartment. Taking off his shoes as he entered, he placed his things down on his table, which included a small black cat, his smartphone, an empty bottle which previously contained coffee, and a boatload of studying materials crammed into his backpack. He’d been out studying in his school’s library, as a midterm exam was coming up. The cat jumped down from the table, helping itself to some cat food, and then turned to the teen to speak.

“Rough studying session, huh?”

This was no ordinary cat, and the teen was no ordinary teen. He was Ren Amamiya, leader of the long-out of operations Phantom Thieves, a band of stylish vigilantes that, nearly two years ago, exposed several famous people’s dirty laundry by using the metaverse, a realm that allowed them to explore the inner workings in distorted people’s minds, and even change their hearts. Morgana, the cat, had accompanied him in the endeavor from the very beginning, and in the end, they succeeded in changing the hearts of the general public, eliminating the biggest source of mental distortion globally, at the cost of eliminating the metaverse altogether. Nowadays, when he wasn’t being followed by the police, Ren spent most of his time being an ordinary high school student.

“Indeed,” Ren replied. “I’ve been having some trouble on civics lately. I need to keep working at it. It’s been rough getting people to study with me because of my reputation.”

“If they really knew what being a phantom thief meant, they would respect you for it,” Morgana protested. “If it weren’t for us, Japan would be two years into the most corrupt Prime Minister in its history.”

In addition to changing the hearts of the public, The Phantom Thieves had succeeded in exposing the corrupt nature of the leading candidate for Prime Minister, Masayoshi Shido, by changing his heart and cooperating with a prosecutor named Sae Niijima to pin him in court. This was the reason for Ren’s current reputation, as exposing Shido in a court of law required Ren to testify against him, which involved confessing to being the leader of the Phantom Thieves. Ren sometimes had feelings of doubt about whether he made the right call, especially since he did so with only Sae knowing, but since the result was so positive, and he wouldn’t be able to continue being a phantom thief with the metaverse gone, he never truly regretted it.

“I can’t change their hearts now, Morgana. Even if I had cause to do so.”

“Still, you should advocate for yourself a little more, Ren. Being a phantom thief was a noble cause!”

“I’ve tried that, buddy. Some people just have the wrong idea about me. Besides, I need to start putting that stuff behind me. My days of being a phantom thief ended two years ago when we defeated the God of Control. I need to look at the future these days, Morgana.”

“In that case, why don’t we call it a day and hit the hay? I want to go to sleep.”

“That’s my line, Morgana. I was the one working hard. You slept half the time.”

“Hey, being a cat and not a human is tiring!” Morgona complained.

The two of them then proceeded to the bedroom, and promptly fell asleep. As he drifted to unconsciousness, Ren fondly remembered how he’d often be called to the velvet room in his sleep. To his surprise, however, he woke up in that very prison cell, along with morgana, with its walls covered in velvet. Immediately, he rose and saw Igor and Lavenza, patiently waiting for him and Morgana to recognize where they were.

“Igor!” Ren, despite what he said to Morgana, was excited at the prospect of being the Leader of the Phantom Thieves again. Seeing Igor again filled him with an almost nostalgic feeling. “Did you call me here to be a phantom thief again?”

“In a sense, yes. I do have need of your talents again. However, the circumstances are a bit dire. An enemy similar to the God of Control has made it’s presence known to me, and it intends to pit you against a group of persona-wielding humans that it’s been using as sacrificial pawns up to this point. I feared retaliation from this creature, so I agreed.”

“Persona users? As sacrificial pawns?”

“From what I could tell, it was harvesting the energy from their personas when they fell in combat. It claimed to be doing good, but it very clearly isn’t.”

Ren was taken aback, but the idea of a figure similar to the God of Control doing something like this wasn’t socking to him. “And I have to fight them?”

“Indeed. And as part of the game, only a few of you will be participating. I’ve chosen the confidants I deemed most important, but I wasn’t able to get everyone.”

“You see,” Lavenza interjected, “This creature is demanding that we chose only five humans to participate, and that they be sent to an alternate reality. One where none of the participants exist.”

Igor continued. “However, I’ve decided to send in Morgana in on a technicality. After all, He isn’t a human.”

“Very clever, master!” Morgana said with a laugh. “And if we win?”

“This creature has agreed to cease it’s operations at once if it fails. Now then, we’re running short on time here. Lavenza, if you may.”

Lavenza conjured a portal behind Ren and morgana, which glowed with rainbow colors. “Once you step through that portal, the game will begin,” Lavenza said. “Are you ready?”

“I was born ready. Come on, Morgana. We’ve got some hearts to Steal!”

“Yeah, let’s do this, Joker!”

At once, the two of them leaped through the portal, and promptly drifted into unconsciousness.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Ren awoke, he found himself in a forest, with the autumn trees covered with golden-brown leaves. He tried to stand, but he fell over almost immediately, and felt his fur press up against the ground, and…. Wait a minute. His _fur?_ He happened a glance at the lack he happened to wake up next to, and what he saw shocked him. He was a small, fox-like creature, with black and red fur, and blue eyes. It was a sight straight out of a videogame, or a light novel. _I’m a Pokémon! A Zorua, at that!_ Ren, struggling to re-learn how to walk, turned to what he could only assume was Morgana. He, too was changed. He still strongly resembled his metaverse form, but he was now a grayish-looking Alolan Mewoth. He, too, was staring into his reflection in shock. He then turned to Ren.

“Ren, we’re video game characters! We turned into Pokémon! What do we do?”

“Well, I don’t know. Look for a village? Maybe Pokémon can be civilized.”

“I certainly hope you’re right, Ren.”

With that, the two of them set off, ren still struggling to walk in his new form. Ren could only hope that they’d find a way to access the metaverse soon.


	2. A mysterious world

After a while of walking, Ren was finally starting to get the hang of having to walk on 4 legs. He found himself doing an odd sort of gallop, and it made him feel more like a horse than anything, but he was making do just fine. However, his main concern was finding out exactly what kind of world he had just been sent to, since he wouldn’t last very long without any kind of food or resources. Ideally, he’d just happen to wander into a town, but he and Morgana had already been walking long enough for the sun to start dipping in the sky, which made him worried.

“Are you going to making me go to bed, Morgana?” Ren asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Well, it’s not like we can be mugged without anything on us.” Morgana replied.

“Morgana, that was a joke.”

“Are you worried, Ren? That’s not like you.”

“Just a little bit.” Ren thought it best to keep his eyes peeled on the surroundings. _Maybe we should mug someone,_ He thought for a moment. His confidence in his ability to steal in this form was quite shaky, but if it came to that, he was willing to do it.

Just off to his left, he saw a cave that piqued his interest. It just seemed off to him, like there was something to be found there. Feeling obligated to check it out, he gestured to it. “Wanna investigate?” He asked Morgana, hoping that maybe something worthwhile was inside.

“If you think there’s something important inside, then I’ll come. Not like we have any other leads.” Morgana seemed eager to check it out, likely hoping for some kind of treasure contained within. Morgana was always happy to score some treasure.

Upon entering, Ren and Morgana immediately heard what sounded like voices yelling in the distance. They couldn’t make out any details, but it sounded panicky.

“Down to play chivalrous hero today, Morgana?” Ren asked with just a hint of irony.

“You bet! It’s time we had something interesting happen!”

Wandering deeper into the cave, something felt off. The walls seemed just a little too straight to be natural, The ground they were standing on just a little too flat. Thinking that something was strange, Ren decided to turn back to explore a little more rather than pursue the voices, which were getting louder. To his shock, the path he had taken wasn’t there anymore! “Morgana, we just came from this way, right?” Ren asked, keeping his voice down.

“I thought we did. We aren’t in the metaverse, are we?”

Ren tried summoning his persona, the manifestation of his will that he used to fight in the metaverse, to no effect. It was clear that he wasn’t in the metaverse, so wherever they were, these walls were just shifting on their own. Ren could still hear the voices, so he felt pressured to pursue them, fearing that they would be unable to continue to do so.

Continuing on, Ren and Morgana found something even stranger. _Stairs._ This was beyond comprehension. Ren couldn’t see what was at the bottom, and they looked like part of the cave itself. And yet, they were very clearly stairs.

“Morgana, let’s be careful not to be too far away from each other. Who knows what’s at the bottom?” Ren said, now visibly on edge.

“….Yeah.” Morgana seemed to be more baffled than anything.

Proceeding down the bizarre set of stairs, everything went dark for just a moment, and then, Ren and Morgana suddenly found themselves in an empty part of the cave, with the stairs they just went down out of sight. The voices were getting louder, so Ren could tell they were getting closer, but as to what just happened, Ren hadn’t a clue.

The new floor, as it could only be called, was the same as the previous one. The walls were still a little too straight, the floor a little too flat, and Ren and Morgana found themselves at yet another set of stairs. Fortunately, they had actually found some food lying around the cave which had presumably been dropped by the person they were pursuing, which left Ren to wonder how exactly they were able to keep up the chase if the walls were closing up behind them. It was at this point that the voices became much clearer, and Ren could finally tell what they were saying.

“You’re that thief’s daughter, right? That tablet’s probably stolen goods! Hand it over!”

“N-no! This belongs to me! I found it, mister!”

“H-hand it over! Or we’ll be f-forced to take it!”

“Y-you don’t sound so sure of that, mister!” It’s mine!”

Ren started thinking. _There’s one- no, two youngish-sounding men chasing a little girl around for a tablet? One’s much louder than the other. The girl’s the son of a thief? Sounds like an ally to me._

“Morgana,” Ren started. “Let’s help this girl. If we’re going to be the phantom thieves, then the help of a group of thieves is gonna be a boon for us. We need somewhere to hide if things go south.”

“No objections here. Let’s teach these guys a lesson.”

Coming to a corner, Ren realized that one of the men was certainly louder than the other. Peering around to ambush, he saw that a Loudred and a Bibarel had a small Sneasel girl wearing a hooded cloak and a satchel backed into a corner. The Sneasel didn’t seem to notice, so now was a perfect time to strike before she blew their over.

The Loudred began to speak. “This is your last chance, kid! Hand over the stolen goods!”

“The girl seems so young, and we came here to explore the area. You sure this is important right now, Loudred?”

“Of course it is, Bibarel! It’s part of the job, and this kid’s Dad is on the wanted board! We have to-“

Loudred never got to finish his sentence. In a flash, Morgana and Ren pounced on Loudred. With a few scratches to his head and a well-placed blow, he was out cold. Both Bibarel and the young sneasel girl were shocked, as these mysterious vigilantes now turned to face the Bibarel that was with Loudred.

“Who the heck are you guys!? Are you with her Dad!?” Bibarel exclaimed, now in terror.

“Just a couple of guys looking to teach a couple of bullies a lesson. You?”

Bibarel took a moment to assess the situation. These guys didn’t speak like someone associated with the Weavile criminal in question, and it was true that they he and Loudred chased a small girl down a mystery dungeon over a suspicious tablet, so he could believe that these guys were acting in good faith. He could probably overpower them, given the size difference, but they might get a chance to jump on his head and knock him out, and since he was so far from the guild, it might be a long time before anyone comes to rescue him. Making peace with these guys seemed like a good decision.

“H-hey man, I was here to explore this general area, and my friend that you gave a good beating to strung me along on this little sideshow here. Why don’t we all just settle down, and I’ll, uh, forgive you.”

Ren was feeling a little tired himself, so he felt inclined to accept this offer. “All right. What was that you were saying about this girl being a thief?”

“Oh, uh, this girl’s dad is a known criminal, you see. My friend here thought that maybe the tablet she has is stolen. That’s what had him so eager to catch her. I don’t really want to lock up this kid over that, though. I’ll have to explain what happened to the guildmaster.”

“Guildmaster? There’s a guild around here?”

“Yup. Wigglytuff’s guild. It shouldn’t be called that anymore, though. Poor guy passed two summers ago. The current guildmaster is keeping the name the same out of respect. I’ll be going now. You two should stay out of trouble.” _I want the guildmaster’s opinion on how to deal with this,_ Bibarel thought, now turning to Loudred to hoist him onto his back. “Consider paying us a visit!”

With that, Bibarel held up a strange-looking badge, and he was gone in a flash of light. Once he was gone, Ren and Morgana turned their attention to the possible thief they had just protected.

“So, who’s your Dad?” Ren asked the girl.

“H-he stole a few things. We move around a lot because people keep coming after him. Not this tablet, though….” The Sneasel then lifted up the tablet to show it to Ren and Morgana, who just barely concealed a moment of shock. On the tablet was the very same symbol as the meta-nav app icon. Beneath was a blank space, where Ren could only assume the keywords were meant to be inscribed. The Sneasel continued. “I found this a few floors down. It was up on an altar with similar symbols on it. If you try to write something on it, it seems to disappear for some reason. Sometimes, some words stay until you write something else. Isn’t that funny?”

“Y-yeah, it is…” Ren thought it a bad time to reveal the existence of the metaverse to this small girl. “Anyway, what is this place?”

“Hm? This is a mystery dungeon, right? One of those places that changes every time you enter, and the only way to leave is to complete it?” The Sneasel seemed to act like this should be common knowledge. “Not this one though. You can leave early if you come up to a dead end like this one and push…” The girl did as she said, and it instantly gave way, revealing an exit.

“Oh! Right.” Ren said, trying his darndest not to look like an idiot. “What’s your name?”

“Sneasel is fine.” Said the girl, now guiding Ren and Morgana through the exit she just created.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ren and Morgana now found themselves walking through a different part of what looked like the same forest with their new ally. It was now nighttime, but it was a full moon, so it wasn’t too difficult to see. The sneasel claimed to be taking them to her father, which was what Ren was hoping for, since it meant a potential safe house for them. However, Ren wasn’t entirely confident that would be the case, since it sounded like this guild was after the man, and, more importantly, that the man was alone. Still, he had to look into it.

“Say, Sneasel.” Said Ren, hoping to break the silence. “How long have you been exploring that dungeon we were just in?”

“I wouldn’t say exploring…. It was more like I was goofing around. It’s been a while since I first went in…. four moons, I think? It’s become a sort of safe place for me. Nobody’s ever in there, and it’s pretty big. It’s almost lonely.”

“You must’ve been shocked when those two from the guild showed up, then.” Morgana interjected. “It sounds like they were looking for you.”

“No, not me. My dad. I’m not wanted for anything… at least, I think I’m not wanted.”

Ren wanted to know as much as possible about her father, so he continued asking questions. “You said your dad was a thief? What did he steal?”

“There were a lot of people. Most of them were pretty rich, and he tried to use the money to get me a comfortable life. He and his friends got caught, and he was the only one to get away. Nowadays, we just go to these really remote parts of the world, hoping to not get found.”

As Ren listened, he couldn’t help but think that this guy sounded a lot like him. _He worked with a team too, huh? Sounds like how the phantom thieves did things. If I were him, I wouldn’t feel very good about abandoning my friends like that, though…._

Ren didn’t get very long to think, however, as a voice called out to the three of them.

“Who goes there?” The voice was rough and sounded almost like it belonged to someone who had seen the horrors of life. Ren looked up to the nearby tree and saw a Weavile man standing on a branch next to a makeshift treehouse. He wore a cape and was munching on a berry. “The name’s Adrik. Who the hell are you, waltzing around with my daughter?”

The Sneasel spoke. “These guys helped me get away from some explorers!” She paused for a moment. “D-don’t worry, the explorers went away!”

Adrik took a moment to size up these two mysterious strangers. They seemed completely empty-handed, but he knew from experience that the Zorua in particular might have a few tricks hiding up his sleeves. “Yer names?”

“I’m Ren Amamiya, and this is my friend Morgana! We promise we aren’t going to turn you in!”

Adrik started to worry a bit. _That’s not relevant. If explorers found Anya, it’s a matter of time before I have to leave. I doubt these guys could do any more damage. Might as well try and learn more about ‘em._ “If yer being honest, then let’s talk about it over a few berries. If ya try anything funny with me or Anya, I knock ya out and run.”

The sneasel turned to Ren and Morgana. “Oh, yeah. My name’s Anya.”

After talking for a while, it became clear to Ren that this wasn’t going to be much of a safehouse. Adrik described how he’d been on the run with his daughter for quite some time.

“When I first got caught, my buddies urged me to run with Anya. Where we were, it was standard to punish the children of criminals as well. Nobody wanted the kid to get locked up with us.”

“So that’s why you left your friends behind? For Anya’s sake?” Ren asked.

“Pretty much. I sometimes wonder if that was a good choice. All of my buddies are now servin’ multiple lifetime sentences. Prison back there is pretty much a death sentence; the conditions are so bad. Some probably died already.”

“You made the right decision.” Ren reassured him. “Protecting your daughter was the right thing to do.”

“Maybe.” Adrik now turned to Anya. “Hey kid, could you go do some foraging? We won’t be able to stay here much longer if the explorer’s guild is onto us, and this place is really good for that.”

“Okay!” Anya got up, and disappeared into the night.

“Now then…” Adrik turned back to Ren and Morgana. “Where the hell are you guys from? Ya aren’t from around here, aren’tcha?”

Ren and Morgana looked at eachother, nodded, and then looked back.

“Have you heard of the human world?” Ren started.

Adrik looked shocked. “W-what?!? Isn’t that supposed to be a myth?”

Morgana puffed his chest out and crossed his arms dramatically. “I duuno, is it? We just woke up in this forest.”

“The rumors say humans only come every few dozen summers! Can you two even prove that you are humans?”

“All we can give you is our word, unfortunately.” Ren replied. “Any more questions?”

Adrik paused for a moment. “If you really did come from the human world… Then that’s good, actually. Because nobody would know who you are.” Adrik’s voice took on a deadly-serious tone. “I can tell just by looking, so don’t bother lying to me. You guys were thieves back in the human world, weren’t ya?”

“…We were. Why?”

“Anya has always wanted to be an explorer, but she’s never been able to because of me. There’s a nearby explorer’s guild in treasure town, and she desperately wanted to at least see it before she left. You guys could take her there, without me getting locked up. If I tried, she might get locked up with me, but if some nobodies took her there, then she could leave me behind.”

“You want us to become explorers with her?”

“Exactly. Trusting you guys is probably a mistake, since you’ve been thieves in the past, but…. If nobody recognizes you, please don’t turn back to that kind of life with her. I don’t want her to get involved in any more of this. Just… stay out of trouble, okay?”

“We’ll try.” Ren said.

At that moment, Anya popped back into the treehouse. “I’m back!” Her satchel was stuffed with quite a few berries, and the tablet with them.

Adrik turned to her and smiled. “Good. Keep the berries, though.” 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quite a hike from the forest, Bibarel found himself at the entrance to Wigglytuff’s guild in Treasure Town. After being identified by Dugtrio at the doorstep, he quietly made his way to the crew rooms to lay Loudred down to rest a bit, and then headed straight for the Guildmaster’s chamber. Nearby was Chatot, who was glaring at the door with what Bibarel had come to understand was envy.

“Still wishing he picked you?” Bibarel asked.

“Bah. I belong in that room. I knew Wigglytuff for years! I bet that Benham manipulated the old man!” Chatot replied, agitated as ever.

“Let it go, man. It’s been two Summers. Besides, he’s done a lot of good around here. Everyone’s been so much more motivated with him around, and we’ve yet to have a single serious incident with new members since he took the position.”

“Shut up! I could have done that too!” Chatot always got angry when the Guildmaster received praise, so long as the Guildmaster wasn’t there to see it.

“Right then. I’ll be going in, now.”

Bidoof knocked on the doors to the chamber twice and, upon opening the door, was greeted by a Flareon. Amity, the Guildmaster’s right hand, had done a lot herself towards managing new recruits. She seemed to turn potential troublemakers into upstanding guild members through her charisma better than Chatot ever did.

“Good evening, Flareon.” Bibarel was sure to use the name of her species for the sake of professionalism.

“Good evening, Bibarel. Here to deliver the report?”

“I sure am, yup yup. Guildmaster Raichu?”

“Yes?” Benham looked over at Bibarel from a large stack of notes, several of which cluttered the room. If there was anything to criticize the Guildmaster for, it was his tendency to turn wherever he was into his personal library. Benham jumped over the small table he’d been reading the notes on and reached up to put both hands on Bibarel’s shoulders. From a distance, it might’ve looked like they were hugging. In reality, the Guildmaster was trying to activate what he called the “Dimensional Scream.” According to Benahm, he could see people’s pasts or futures just by touching them. The Guildmaster then lowered his hands to his sides and began to speak.

“Where’s Loudred?”

“I left him in the crew rooms.” Bibarel answered. “He got, uh, injured.”

“I see. What did you find out there?”

“For starters, the forest had a pretty big section that’s just great for berry harvesting.”

Benham gave an apprehensive look. “….And what you found that caused Loudred injury?”

“O-Oh, yes, that. Well, you see, you know that guy that’s evaded capture for several summers now? Adrik Weavile? We just happened to run into his Daughter in those woods, and she was holding a funny-looking tablet. Loudred was really eager to chase her, so we did. Into a mystery dungeon, In fact.”

The Guildmaster tensed up a little. “And Adrik himself jumped you and Loudred, and ran off to parts unknown?”

“That’s the thing. Adrik didn’t show. Instead, these two crazypeople jump us from around a corner and knock Loudred out cold! They got him good, too! I backed off then and there, I was so shocked!”

“Were they anyone who we’d know about?”

“Not that I could tell. They said they didn’t know Adrik at all, that they just saw a couple of bullies, and jumped in to help! They were probably lying, but-“

“You swear you didn’t see Adrik at all? And you were inside this mystery dungeon when it happened?”

“That’s correct, yes.”

Benham paused for a moment. Bibarel had known the Guildmaster for long enough to know that this meant he was deep in thought. Benham then turned back to Bibarel, after almost a minute of silence.

“I think it’s likely that the men you encountered are meant to be escorts of some kind.” He finally said.

“Escorts? How so?” Amity said, finally taking an opportunity to speak.

“In the past, Adrik has been known to prioritize the safety of his daughter before most other things. Therefore, it’s odd that not he, but these two mysterious characters came to the girl’s defense. It’s especially odd that you found no trace of him in the forest.”

“So why does that make these guys escorts?”

“Because the girl lacks any sort of crimes to her name. Adrik has been extremely careful not to directly involve her. Let’s assume, then, that he wants his daughter to live a normal life without him. If he wants her to do that, he needs a way to get her to town without getting her arrested with him. He could try sneaking in, but that might get him caught, and land her a charge with him. That would get in the way of his daughter living a normal life, not to mention that he’d spend life behind bars. If she went with someone else, though, she could just walk right into town.”

“I see. So he’d need help to get the daughter in.”

“Exactly. He’d just need to find someone who isn’t particularly affiliated with the Guild or Treasure town and wouldn’t know about him, but was a fairly noble person. These two mystery men that attacked Loudred are that person, or people in this case.”

“So, do we go after them?”

“Not yet. We’ll just keep an eye on them if they happen to show up. In the meantime, we’ll have a team search that forest on the off chance that Adrik was actually there. Have Dugtrio update the outlaw board with this new information.” Benham sighed, and then sat back at the table. He addressed Bibarel again. “Good luck with Loudred. He’s not going to be happy with this decision. Have a good night, otherwise.”

“You too, Guildmaster.” Bibarel couldn’t help but be impressed. With limited information, He managed to put together so much. It was this very quality that seemed to make him such a good Guildmaster. He always knew what the right decision to make was. To Bibarel, he seemed like a man that could do no wrong. Still, he’d thought about this several times. It was time to address Loudred’s wounds. If the Guildmaster was never wrong, then Loudred would be cranky.


	3. Journey to the south

As she walked out of the woods, Anya couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. Her father had just entrusted her to Morgana and Ren, who he had just met. She couldn’t help but wonder what it was about these two that made them worth trusting to Dad, who rarely trusted anyone. He claimed that they were fellow thieves, like him, but how did that make them safe to walk into treasure town with? Looking at the woods behind her, knowing that she probably wouldn’t be able to see him again until he was caught made her almost want to go back. Still, she felt a certain admiration from Ren and Morgana for saving her back in the mystery dungeon. She trusted them a least a little bit, and they seemed like nice people. Even then, she felt a need to know more about them.

“So, where are you guys from, exactly?” Anya started, hoping to get something out of them.

“Far.” Ren replied. “So far that nobody could know about our past. In fact, we aren’t entirely sure how we ended up in that forest.”

“So you don’t remember anything about your pasts?”

“No, we do.” Morgana started. “We just don’t know how we ended up there.”

_They probably don’t want to reveal too much._ Anya thought to herself _Something they don’t want me knowing? I have to know more, though…._

“You guys are thieves, right? What did you do?”

“We… saw a few things a few rich and powerful people didn’t want us seeing.” Ren explained. “It’s like stealing information. We’d go around exposing corrupt people like that.”

“Were there more of you?”

“A couple of us. We all worked together, for the most part.”

“Where did they go? Did they get caught?”

“No, as far as I know, nobody ever got caught. We came close a few times.”

Anya was a little perplexed. “And you never stole anything worth money?”

“Well…. We did help ourselves to a little treasure from time to time.” Morgana sighed wistfully. “A group of dashing, noble thieves like us did well to prioritize our exposés, though.”

Anya chuckled. “Dashing, noble thieves?”

“But of course! Our deeds were quite good, don’t you agree?” Morgana responded eagerly.

“I suppose so….” Anya felt a little better about trusting them now. These guys, or at least Morgana, seemed like the people they said they were. Still, if she was going to make an exploration team with them, she needed to know their intentions. “And you’re serious about doing this?”

“We are.” Ren responded. “This is something you’ve always wanted, right?”

“Of course it is! It’s just… why did you agree to it?”

Ren paused for a moment. “Well, we wanted to help you out. Besides, we didn’t have many other options. If we went off on our own, we wouldn’t know where to start.”

“And I can trust that you aren’t going to just bolt when we get to town?”

“A promise is a promise. I swear to my bones that we’ll make a team with you!”

“If you say so.”

Anya felt a little bit better now. She wasn’t entirely sure that they’d stick with her in the long term, but she felt that they weren’t going to abandon her. She once again turned back, and saw that the forest was now a much bigger distance away from her. _We’ve walked that far already? I guess this means no turning back now._ As she kept walking and making small talk with Ren and Morgana, the field she found herself in seemed to keep going on and on. She saw the shoreline off to her left, and she knew that she’d eventually hit treasure town if she kept following it, but she didn’t think that she’d make it for another couple of days. _It’s a good thing I packed all of these berries._

Nearly a day of walking later, the trio found themselves at a large mountain that had a few rivers running down it. After walking closer, they found themselves at a cave entrance. This seemed to be the entrance to a mystery dungeon. At this stage, Anya felt it prudent to ask Ren and Morgana how much they knew about mystery dungeons, since they didn’t seem to know much when she first met them.

“Hey, how much experience do you guys have with mystery dungeons, anyway?”

“Not much.” Ren admitted. “There weren’t any where we were from.”

“Really? I guess I should try to explain a little. You remember what I said when we first met, right?”

“You said that they change every time you enter and that the only way to exit is to make it to the end, right?”

“Yeah, that’s about right. There’s a little more, though. Since most are pretty big, the entrance and the exit to a mystery dungeon are usually pretty far apart. That means that taking a mystery dungeon is usually much faster than going around.”

“I see. So that means we’re going to go into this cave, then?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. If it’s a mystery dungeon, it’ll save us a lot of time trying to scale this huge mountain.”

“You think we’re going to run into anybody?” Morgana interjected. “It’d be best to avoid fighting, lest we find ourselves with some enemies later.”

“I think we might run into a few Pokémon who live in the area. Hopefully, we’ll just talk our way through. The types of Pokémon to live in or around a mystery dungeon tend to not really keep up with outlaw boards, so they wouldn’t recognize Dad, much less me.”

“All right.” Ren said confidently. “It’s showtime, then!”

Anya couldn’t help but chuckle a little. After hanging out with them for a while, it had become apparent that they had a tendency to be dramatic, and even comical. That had made her feel much easier about being with them. It made her feel confident in herself in a way that her father just didn’t.

As they ventured in, it became apparent that this cave was indeed a mystery dungeon. The walls, corners, and floors had that unnatural quality that screamed “Mystery dungeon”. Soon enough, they found a set of stairs, and with it, the next floor. These stairs led upwards, not down, which was a sign that they’d end up higher on the mountain. This concerned Anya a little, because that meant, in all likelihood, that they’d need to climb down.

Nearly five floors later, they had yet to find a single other Pokémon. This was, itself, odd. _Did we really end up coming to an abandoned mountain?_ This thought kept tugging at the back of Anya’s head. Her life on the run up to this point had conditioned her to sound the alarm in this situation, so she decided to speak. “Hey, Ren. Morgana. We aren’t being followed, are we?”

Ren, without skipping a beat, flipped around and called out. “Hey! Is anyone following us? Reveal yourselves!”

His yell was quite loud, so Anya was sure that anyone who might be following behind could hear. But nobody came. The three of them stood there, waiting for a solid minute. Not a peep. Ren turned back forward. “Let’s keep looking back from time to time.” His face had a very serious look to it.

As they continued on, periodically checking behind them to see if anyone suddenly appeared, they finally came to what looked like an exit. Looking around at the area they just appeared in, Anya saw that they were indeed higher up on the mountain. However, this side of the mountain looked easy to walk down. Several rivers ran down it like belts, and emptied themselves into the ocean. The path itself looked gentle. The sun was high in the sky, so if they kept walking, they’d probably only have another day or two before they made it to town. Her observations were cut short, however, by an unfamiliar voice.

“And who are you kids, wandering around the mountain?”

She immediately turned to the voice, fully prepared to bolt headlong down the mountain if it threatened to oppose her. She saw a large absol man giving her a warm smile. He didn’t seem hostile, which gave her some relief, but something about him rubbed her the wrong way. Ren began to give a reply.

“We’re just making our way to treasure town. Is there an issue?”

“Travelers?” The Absol seemed intrigued. “Don’t get many going to treasure town this way. Most seem to be going from treasure town. Where’d you come from?”

“Quite far from here.”

The absol seemed taken aback at first, but brushed it off with a laugh. “Kids going on adventures, eh? Reminds me of when I was younger. That’s how I found this place…. Hey, Tatsu!” The absol was addressing someone else this time. “We’ve got visitors!”

As he spoke, an absol who appeared to be quite a bit younger than Anya came bounding around a bend. He looked at the trio with a childish innocence in their eyes. Without warning, He began to bombard Anya, Ren, and Morgana with questions.

“Where are you from? Did you come from the town? How old are you? Wha-“

“Now, now, Tatsu! Pipe down. They just got out of the mystery dungeon. The last thing they need is to be assaulted…” The older absol then turned to the trio. “My apologies. He doesn’t meet many people up here. My oldest is more reasonable though. She’s running an errand over in treasure town, so she won’t be back until tomorrow. I suppose you won’t be staying that long.”

“I don’t think so, sir.” Morgana confirmed. “We’re on a roll, and we really don’t want to stretch our food supplies too thin.”

“Ah, that’s a shame. She’s such a resourceful young girl, and it’d be good to meet some people her age. I’d appreciate it if you stopped for a little bit to have lunch with us.”

“Ah, what’s the harm?” Ren said with a jovial smile.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ren certainly appreciated the hospitality, after walking out in the wilderness for so long. Tomohisa, the Asbol man, was a kind fellow. His wife, an Absol woman named Junko, had done most of the harvesting while Tomohisa was the one doing the cooking. He had made them all a few berry juices and sandwiches, which tasted great, and had all 6 Pokémon eat outside. Still, keeping their origins a secret was a priority. Hence, Ren, Morgana, and Anya all gave vague answers when Tatsuya, the child, asked them questions. Tomohisa seemed to catch on.

“You don’t like giving out to many details, do you?” Asked Tomohisa.

“We have more than a few things we’d rather not tell a group of strangers about.” Ren answered. 

“Ah, that’s fine. Reminds me of my daughter. She’s pretty hesitant to give out info too… She doesn’t like it when I tell people her name. Last time I did, she didn’t speak to me for a whole day. I’m sure you’ll meet her along the way.”

Ren polished off the last of his sandwich, and stood. “Well, we’d best be going. It was nice meeting you.” Ren thought it best to get going before Junko, who had been giving them a suspicious look the entire time, made them. She looked like she was done with her husband’s generosity.

“I’d stick to the path if I were you. The mystery dungeon is the only thing notable about this mountain, anything else is just gonna slow you down. Safe travels” Tomohisa told Ren.

“Thank you, sir.” Morgana and Anya said in unison. Anya, it seemed, had already bonded with her new friends.

As the trio walked off, Ren felt a certain relief. He didn’t need anyone knowing that all three of them had a history in theft. Still, this wouldn’t be the last time he’d have to hide information like this. No doubt, he’d be interrogated along with Anya and Morgana as soon as they made it to town. Still, at least he could come up with a good story then. That was better than trying to speak without saying anything at all for minutes on end. He decided now would be a good time to tell Anya and morgana the plan for when they got interrogated.

“Hey, Anya?” Ren asked.

“Yeah?”

“You know what to do when the interrogators start questioning you, right?”

“Just say that I don’t know what they’re talking about?”

“No, that’s not gonna fly. They already know who you are. Instead, just deny it when they ask if there was any time where your dad had you help steal. That way, they won’t be able to prove anything. After all, that’s true, right?”

“….Yeah. Dad never had me help when he went to steal anything.”

“Exactly. Since you aren’t really lying, they won’t be able to touch you. As for us, we’ll just say that we’re escorts, since that isn’t really a lie either. Just don’t mention anything about our pasts, okay?”

“…Okay.” Anya paused for a moment. “Say, could you guys please tell me where exactly you came from?”

Ren paused. He knew he couldn’t keep the truth from Anya forever, so giving another vague answer would probably be bad in the long term. He looked to Morgana and nodded. Morgana gave a serious look, and nodded back. He then turned back to Anya. “We’re humans.”

“What!?!” Anya said, shocked. “Y-You’re not pulling my leg, are you?”

“No, I’m not. We’re thieves from the human world.”

“H-Humans aren’t supposed to exist, you know! I thought that the whole humans thing was just a fairy tale!”

“I guess not. But that’s the truth. We did, in fact, come from the human world. In fact, it’s relevant to how we were able to steal, but that’s a story for another time.”

Anya took a deep breath, and then began to speak. “All right. I believe you, in that case. I’ve come to trust you over these past two days.” She paused for a moment. “And I can’t tell them any of this, right? It’s our secret?”

“Yeah. If the humans bit ever comes to light, just say that you didn’t know.”

“All right. You can count on me.”

Two days of walking and going over the story they planned to tell later, the trio found was getting quite exhausted. Food was dwindling, and they all had gotten a little dreary. Despite that, they had only grown closer together, and they were determined to make it to the end. Suddenly, Anya seemed to spot something in the distance on the beach they were walking on, and began to point ahead.

“Hey, is that….”

Ren looked to where Anya was pointing. Off in the distance, he saw a large cliffside that resembled a Sharpedo. Ren realized that this was, in all likelyhood, Sharpedo bluff, the landmark Adrik had told them about. Instantly, he got excited.

“We made it!” Ren exclaimed.

Quickly continuing along the coastline, Ren spotted an archway. Clearly, this was the entrance to Treasure town. Coming up to it, Ren felt an odd warmth. It felt good to have survived the wilderness and come this far. And yet, he surely couldn’t be out of the woods just yet. These fears were confirmed when, as he walked through, a not-so-friendly raichu appeared from behind the gate and began to talk to them.

“Adrik’s daughter and the escorts he hired, correct? You may call me Benham. I’d like for you to answer a few questions in the station.” 

Ren whispered into Anya’s ear. “Just remember what we talked about.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After Interrogating both Anya and Morgana, Benham had his suspicions more or less confirmed. Anya, of course, had denied that she ever participated in her father’s crimes, which lined up with what was publicly known about Adrik, so with no witnesses to contradict her, she was more or less untouchable. She claimed she had met Ren and Morgana a few days before entering the forest, which also lined up with what Benham had deduced. When he began to interrogate Morgana, this question was asked again, and the same story was given. Morgana also claimed to not know that Adrik was a criminal. More interesting was the question of Ren and Morgana’s origins. Morgana claimed to just be from very far away, and did not specify where. Of course, this didn’t sit well with Benham, but with no grounds to arrest them, pressing seemed ill-advised. However, something about Morgana’s behavior wasn’t quite right, and Ren felt off in the same way. This was at the forefront of Benham’s mind when Ren Zorua walked into the interrogation room.

“Please sit down across the table from me and answer my question truthfully. You aren’t allowed to speak with your partners in this interrogation room unless I permit it, so you can be sure we’ll spot any holes in your story.” Benham was sure to speak in a firm tone.

“I understand.” Ren replied.

“When exactly did you meet Adrik and Anya?”

“That was nearly a week ago. Back then, I had no idea that they were thieves.”

_That lines up well with what Anya and Morgana said. If that’s true, then it means that Adrik is probably very far from the forest._

“In a forest a few days of walking from here, one my guild’s members claimed to be attacked by you. Can you tell me what happened from your perspective?”

“While we were walking in that forest, Anya got scared, and ran off. While we looking for her, we heard two men yelling something about stolen goods. We followed the voices into a mystery dungeon, and we found a Bibarel and a Loudred cornering Anya, and we jumped them from behind in an effort to protect Anya. We knocked out the Loudred with a blow to the head. After that, the Bibarel backed off and explained that he was from a guild assigned to investigate the area, and that Anya was the daughter of a thief.”

“You swear that you were acting to protect Anya?”

“I do.”

“And you didn’t try to use your natural illusory abilities to your advantage?”

“I didn’t.”

“And you knocked out Loudred with a blow to the head?”

“That’s correct.”

That story lined up perfectly with the story Morgana gave, as well as what Anya said and the injuries Loudred sustained, but something about it just sounded off. In particular, it was odd that they relied on knocking loudred out and just scratched him a few times instead of dealing a more grievous wound with something like _slash._ It was also odd that Ren never, at any stage, attempted to hide his presence with the illusion ability.

“If you were acting, in good faith, to defend Anya, then it can be forgiven that you attacked the guild members. However, in that case, I would like to know if you are affiliated with another guild someplace else, and if so, if this was an official job of some kind. Please, tell me if you are.”

“I am not.”

“In that case, I’d like to know where exactly you came from.”

“It’s someplace very far from here.”

Another vague answer. Now, Benham was positive there was something to hide. _The vague response, and the unusual method of dealing with potential threats. There’s some kind of connection there… if they were just hiding where they were from because they are also criminals, it doesn’t explain their actions in the forest. Maybe…._ It was only speculation, but it was a fascinating possibility.

“Is it possible that you and Morgana are humans?”

Benham knew that he was onto something when this question provoked a reaction from Ren. He suddenly had a subtle look of surprise on his face, and jumped just a tiny bit. Ren then seemed to calm himself, and gave his response.

“How’d you figure it out?” Ren asked with just a hint of intrigue in his voice.

“It was only speculation, but…” Benham started. “When I first saw that you were a Zorua, and that Morgana was a Meowth, it was extremely odd to me how you handled Loudred in the mystery dungeon. You knocked him out with a blow to the head using your paws, instead of either going for something like dark pulse or brutal swing, or inflicting a more dangerous wound with, say, slash. You, In particular, never attempted to hide the fact that you were a Zorua, which is extremely common for Zoruas. When you and Morgana both gave vague responses as to where you came from, my gut told me that those facts were connected. That led me to the idea that you might be humans.”

“That’s… very impressive.”

“Thank you, Ren. Now then, does Anya know?”

“She doesn’t.”

“All right. I won’t require you to disclose that information to her, in that case.” Benham stood up from the table. “With that, I have no further questions, at least for now. You are dismissed.”

“Thank you, Benham.”

“Oh, and just a word of advice. It’s courteous to refer to Pokémon by the name of their species. Call me Guildmaster Raichu from here on, got it?”

“I understand.” Ren nodded, and then quietly exited the interrogation room.

Benham himself was getting tired, as it was quite late in the day at this point. He exited the interrogation room from the back, and then left the police station, heading to the main guild building. Once back at his office, he greeted Amity, and sat back down at his desk.

“Anything suspicious about the three of them, Benham?”

“No, nothing at all. They seem, at least, to be innocent of any charges. There was something interesting that came to light regarding Ren and Morgana, however. It turns out that they are humans. I figured it out by looking at how they acted in the forest and how they were vague about where they came from.”

“That’s interesting! Did you find anything else out? See anything with your dimensional scream?”

“Of course not. I need you to be present for that. In any case, we’ll keep an eye on them. Maybe they’ll be a good fit at the guild.”

Benham dwelled on that thought for a moment. _Humans besides me at the guild, huh? Should be pretty interesting……._


	4. Smiles go for miles!

As Ren awoke in a bed that resembled something a pet would use, he found himself feeling optimistic. Light filtered into the small room that he, Morgana, and Anya were now staying in, giving the place an almost inviting feel. After the previous night’s interrogations, they’d been directed to the department of housing for new arrivals, apparently founded by Benham to handle the flow of Pokémon into treasure town, and got themselves a small hut to stay in. Ren disliked the apparent bureaucracy of it all, but a house to stay in was more than welcome. Besides, given the thick walls and single window, it would make a fine base of operations for when the phantom thieves finally began to operate once again. Still, the first order of business was to get themselves properly situated.

“Good morning,” Ren said to Anya and Morgana. “Shall we head out?”

“You said it, buddy,” Morgana replied. “Time to get started!”

“Yeah!” Anya said. She had already gotten prepared for the day, and seemingly couldn’t wait to sign up for the guild.

“You’re certainly happy about this!” Ren observed.

“I’ve practically dreamed about this day for ages now. I never thought it would come!”

“Alright. But before we do that, we should probably get a bite to eat. You have the money, right?”

“Y-yeah. About 5000 poké. That should cover a couple meals.”

Ren chuckled a little. Her excitement was almost childish, but he couldn’t help but like her for it. After all, he felt much the same way when Igor told him he’d get to be a phantom thief again. Still, he imagined that working with the guild would probably be more formal and less adventurous than she imagined. At any rate, getting to know the town better would probably be best before signing up.

“All right, let’s look around the town a little.”

Now outside the hut, Ren started walking uphill. The hut where he was staying was down near the beach, not too far from where Benham had first confronted them yesterday, as were several other houses that also housed Pokémon who worked and lived in and around treasure town. To get to all of the shops, eating locations, facilities, and the guild, on the other hand, one needed to go up to the main plateau. As he walked, he spotted a Machoke who seemed to be just passing by.

“Hey!” Ren called out. “We’re new here! What’s the best place to eat?”

“That’d be the Spinda’s café near the crossroads, Zorua!” Ren noted that the Machoke specifically used ‘Zorua’ to refer to him. “Their juice bar is absolutely divine!”

“Thanks, Machoke!”

“Don’t mention it! All the newcomers get blown away by that place!”

As the Machoke walked down to the beach behind him, Ren felt he was getting the hang of Pokémon culture. _Just refer to strangers with their species name if I don’t know their name. Got it._

Walking into the café, Ren was a little surprised. The place was fairly busy, despite how early it was. Ren thought it best to just order something and sit down at one of the handful of open tables. _Guess this place is the real deal._ Walking up to the counter, he was greeted by an almost overly enthusiastic Spinda.

“Greetings! Seeing new faces in this bar, it’s my treat!”

“Hello,” Ren stated. “We heard this place was good. Any first-timer recommendations?”

The Spinda seemed to light up with glee. “Try our oran drink! It’s got a lovely flavor that’s just bursting with emotion!”

“All righty then. How much for three?”

“That’ll be 750 poké in total.”

Ren was a little apprehensive at the price, but 250 for one drink seemed reasonable enough. At least, it did if the drink was any good. Hopefully the guild could provide them with enough income to come here time to time.

“All right,” Ren said, gesturing to Anya to pay. “We’ll take it.”

Now sitting down with their drinks at the table, the trio all took a sip. Once he tried his drink, Ren really was blown away. The flavor was something else. The sweetness, the tanginess, all of it combined into something that made him almost feel inadequate as someone who regularly made his own drinks. He looked to Morgana and Anya, who also seemed amazed by their quality.

“A-anyways…” Ren said with a slight stutter. “What else should we do before we head over to the guild?”

“I just want to head up there and do it…. I’ve never been so excited in my life!” Anya exclaimed.

“I’d like to do a little more exploring around the town,” Said Morgana. “We didn’t get much of a chance last night…”

“I agree. I’d like to know the town a little better before we go to the guild,” Ren added.

“Well, I guess there is one thing we need before we sign up for the guild,” Anya admitted. “We need a team name.”

“A team name?” Upon hearing Anya, Ren had become nostalgic. He thought back to the buffet that he’d attended with Ryuji, Ann, and Morgana right after stealing Kamoshida’s heart, and how they settled on the name ‘Phantoms’ then and there. _I wonder if Ryuji and Ann made the trip…_ Remembering that time, he felt much the same way now. This was, in fact, the foundation of a whole new team for Ren. He knew that the phantom thieves would eventually return, but he also knew that this was a pivotal moment for his time in this world.

“How about Phantoms?” Morgana suggested. “It’s got a nice ring to it.”

“You know why we can’t use that one, Morgana,” Ren said, trying to keep his voice down. “That’s our old name.”

“Oh, right….”

“How about… Team Style? A good name for a flashy team, no?”

“That’s tacky….. how about-“

“How about Team Shadows?” Anya interjected. “It’s got the same feel as your last name, right? It’d also be good for a team of all dark types.”

“All right then!” Ren smiled. “Team shadows it is!”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sitting in his office, Benham knew that today would probably be the day that Anya attempted to join the guild with the escorts. She’d said as much during the interrogation, and before that Benham knew there must have been some reason for picking treasure town over the much closer villages to the north. Benham knew that the escorts were at least a little competent, since they had gone as far as knocking out Loudred, but he still needed to make sure that they we fit for this line of work before bringing them into the fold. Besides, they needed some proper combat training in order to face tougher opponents. As he was thinking this, he heard a knock at the door.

Amity rushed to the door to greet whoever was there. As she opened the door, Anya, Ren, and Morgana walked in.

“Greetings, miss, ah..” Ren trailed off looking at Amity.

“Flareon, please,” Amity responded.

“Right. Is Guildmaster Raichu in?”

“He is indeed,” Said Benham, getting up from his desk. “Your business here being?”

“We would like to join your guild. We came here to give our application.”

_Just as I suspected. I assume Anya is putting them up to this, but I’ll interview them as a group just to be sure._

“All right. In that case, I just need all of you to tell me why, exactly, you want to join. Let’s start with you, Ren. Why did you want to join us?” Benham was hoping to see a little enthusiasm from the new human.

“Well, I’ve always wanted to explore the world. Seeing the world, and all of it’s wonders! That’s what motivates me!”

“What about you, Morgana?”

“I just love the idea of exploring. I want to go around to lands with treasure and glory!”

_Those are some pretty generic answers, especially from Ren. They really are just doing this for Anya. That makes her the most important part of this interview._

“What about you, Anya? Why do you want to join our guild?”

“I-I want to explore! I want to help people. That’s why I came all this way! To join you people!”

_She’s speaking like she’s already been turned down. She must be seriously nervous about this._

“Are you sure? You don’t sound too confident.”

“A-absolutely! I have to do this! It’s always been my dream to be an explorer!”

“You’ll do it, even if it’s hard?”

“I-I’ll do whatever it takes!”

“All right. I believe you,” Benham said. _You’re determined to do this no matter what, right? That’s good. I need that kind of drive in new recruits._ “In any event, you three are planning on joining the guild as a trio, correct? Do you have a team name in mind?”

“We decided on Team Shadows,” Ren started “We thought it made sense, since we’re all dark types. Plus, it sounds cool.”

Benham laughed at the almost childish reasoning. “That would make it hard to get new members if you’re all dark types, no?”

“I-is it a problem?” Anya asked

“No, it’s fine,” Benham Reassured her. “Those kinds of teams crop up from time to time. It’s just that I wouldn’t make it a rule. Most don’t end up sticking with that.”

“Then… Are we a team now?” Anya’s eyes seemed to light up with excitement.

Benham walked over to the trio. “Morgana, Ren, and Anya.” Benham made sure to touch their shoulders as he said their names. “Team Shadows. I officially welcome you into Wigglytuff’s guild!”

As the newly-christened team took a moment to celebrate, Benham paused, waiting for his dimensional scream to tell him something. He waited even after Team Shadows had come down from their high, and he got nothing. _Nothing, huh? I would’ve thought that I could see something, since Ren’s a human and all… Oh well._

“Now then,” Benham made his way to his desk, pulled open a drawer, and took out three badges, one for each of the members. He then opened another drawer, and took out a large box. He then walked back over to Team Shadows, and passed out the badges. As he did, the name of the person who was holding it flashed across the back, as well as their face and the new team name. “These are your guild badges. They’re proof that you’re members of our guild, as well as a form of identification should you need to prove your identity. If you’ll take a look at the top on the back, you’ll see a button. If you push that, you’ll be taken to the guild’s current waypoint. Right now, that’s the crossroads in the middle of town. You can hold down the button, and that’ll send out a flash of light that’ll send whoever gets caught in it to the waypoint. You’ll need that to send criminals and rescues to the town. As for this box…” Benham opened the box, and took out the backpacks, supplies, and maps contained within. “These are backpacks from the guild. Inside, you’ll find supplies like reviver seeds and escape orbs that’ll be useful for you on your missions. We aren’t going to provide these for free, so you’ll want to pay the Keckleon brothers a visit in town when you get the chance. These maps are of the grass continent as it is currently known. Reference it on your missions.”

“This is a lot of equipment…” Ren remarked.

“Of course. We don’t want to underequip our explorers. Being an explorer is difficult and dangerous work. As for the guild itself, you’ll have access to all of our facilities here, but you won’t be living in the crew rooms since we don’t have any space in there for new recruits. It’s all taken up by the old guard. As for the access, it includes the mess hall, which closes very early, before the morning briefing. Be sure to get up bright and early tomorrow, lest you miss breakfast.” Benham took in a deep breath, then spoke one more time. “Tomorrow, we’ll have you start by getting acquainted with the various parts of the guild, and have you do some combat training. That is all. May you succeed in this guild.”

“Th-thank you Guildmaster.” Anya was clearly excited to get started. “We won’t disappoint you!”

“I certainly hope so. See you tomorrow, then.”

After the new recruits left the room, Benham turned to Amity.

“Amity, what do you think?”

“They’ll do just fine. I’ll be sure to get them properly situated with us.”

“All right. In that case, I have nothing left to say.”

“Did you see anything with your dimensional scream?”

“No, actually. I’ll keep on trying, though. Want to know what kind of Pokémon they are, exactly.”

“That’s weird. You haven’t seen anything for the past few days, have you?”

“It’s not the only time that’s happened. I’m sure to see something if I keep trying…..”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One very excited night’s sleep later, Ren, Anya, and Morgana got up early in the morning, had an average breakfast at the mess hall in the guild, and headed into the main hall of the guild for their very first morning briefing.

“Good morning everyone!” Benham walked out of his room, making his presence known with his voice. “Before we begin today, I have an announcement to make. We’ve got a few new recruits joining us today. Please welcome Team Shadows to the guild!”

A few cheers rang out across the room, as well as a few whispers. Most seemed to welcome the trio to the guild. Loudred and Chatot were seemingly giving the three the stinkeye.

“With that out of the way, let’s get started,” Benham continued. “A one, a two, a one-two-three..”

Everyone else joined in, calling out:

“ONE! DON’T SHIRK WORK! TWO! RUN AWAY AND PAY! THREE! SMILES GO FOR MILES!”

“Good cheer!” Benham said. “All right, everyone do your regular duties for the day. Team Shadows, refer to Flareon for your training. That is all. You are all dismissed.”

After everyone cleared out of the room, Ren, Anya and Morgana turned to Amity, who was waiting for them.

“You three excited to get started?”

“Of course!” Said Anya. “I’ve been waiting for this day for a while.”

“Good! It’s good to see some energy from the new recruits.”

With that, Amity led The trio around the guild, showing them the crew rooms, the mess hall, the Swap center run by Croagunk, the mission boards, and the sentry post, sure to explain all of them in detail. Ren noted that she seemed almost like she was giving a college tour. After that, she led them outside the guild.

“So, why are we going outside the guild now?” Ren asked. “Isn’t training going to be inside the guild?”

“Ah, but I didn’t introduce you to a training facility, did I? We don’t have a dedicated place like that in the guild. Instead, we rely on the support of one of the town’s facilities.”

Walking into the center of town, and walking into a small building, the trio found themselves in a room with a single Marowak sitting at a desk, and a cave entrance behind him. The Marowak looked up, saw Amity, and gave a warm smile.

“Ah, Amity! Bringing new recruits in for combat training?” The Marowak said. He clearly knew her well.

“Please, Marowak. If you know I’m here on guild business, You should be a little more formal.” She then turned to Team Shadows. “This is Marowak. He’s very knowledgeable about training and Pokémon moves, so he’ll be your instructor for the day. I’ll be watching. Once you’re done for the day, you should return to your hut, and I’ll report to the guild master on how your training went. Understood?”

“Got it!” All three said at once.

With that, Amity stood aside and allowed the Marowak to say his piece.

“Greetings, new recruits! Welcome to Marowak’s Dojo! Here, I’ll teach you how to be proper fighters! Let’s get down to it!”

With a hop in his step, he led Ren, Morgana, and Anya into the cave entrance, with Amity watching close behind. They found themselves in a small room, illuminated by candles lining the wall.

“All right,” The Marowak started. “Let’s start by teaching you three a move all of you should be able to perform. It’s called scratch. You can perform it by focusing on your claws and swiping with them. It’s a little more complicated than just scratching. You must focus your strength in your claws. That part is vital! If you did it correctly, you’ll get more power out of it then just scratching at me. Want to give it a try?”

“All right, I’ll try it.” Ren replied.

“All right, try using scratch against my guard.” Marowak held up his bone, prepared to block.

_Concentrate on my claws…._ Ren tensed up his right front paw, and focused his strength on it. Then, he leaped forward, and scratched at Marowak with it! The Marowak blocked his attack easily, but Ren managed to leave noticeable scratch marks on the bone. Then, Ren looked down at his paw. He realized that his claws were extended a little, and they were glowing. “Did I do it?” He asked.

“Sure did! That’s a proper Scratch. Now then, would you two like a try?”

Morgana tried next. He had to make a few attempts before he got it down, but eventually, he had the same results. Next was Anya. She managed to get it down her first try, which seemed to make Morgana a little jealous.

Marowak again addressed the three of them. “All right, now that you know a basic attacking move, I’d like you to try your hand at one of my training mazes. You’ll be going through my dark maze, since you’re all dark types. It’s like a mystery dungeon, but much shorter. Only a few floors. The thing is, it’ll be crawling with some of my own dojo members. You’ll have to fight your way through. Once you do that, you’re done for the day. Got it?”

“Got it!” All three responded at once.

“Get to it then! I’ll be watching the whole time to see how you do. Do your best!”

With that, Team Shadows descended into the training maze. Inside, they noticed the whole place was fairly dark. Before they could get their bearings, however, they were attacked by a member of the dojo. They quickly hit him with a scratch or two, and after going back and forth for a minute, the dojo member went down. This pattern repeated itself for three floors, and before they knew it, they were finished with the training maze, albeit with a few bruises. Marowak patched them up a bit, and spoke.

“Good work, you three. You’ve passed your training for the day. Tomorrow, we’ll have you all learn new moves, and then do more training mazes. You are dismissed. I hope to see you tomorrow.”

The trio exited the dojo for the day, and as they did, they saw Amity walking back to the dojo. They assumed that this meant that they could go home for the day, which they did. The next few days proceeded similarly. Each day, Marowak had them learn something new, and then use that new move in the training maze. By the end of the fourth day, they had all learned both fury swipes and dark pulse, two relatively difficult moves to use, as well as the moves icy wind and metal claw for Anya, knock off and agility for Ren, and taunt and bite for Morgana. The day after, when they went to Amity to do another day of training, she smiled, and spoke with a more cheerful tone.

“Actually, the Guildmaster thinks that today is a good day to start you off on your first mission. Your training has gone way better than expected, so he wants you on the field as soon as possible.”

“Really?” Ren asked. “It went that smoothly? I thought we weren’t doing so well.”

“Rest assured, you’re doing more then fine. Now then, if you’ll follow me…..”

Amity led the trio to the room with the mission boards. She then guided them to the job bulletin board, and turned back to them.

“Today, we’ll start you off by having you take a job from this board. Since you’re still new at this, we’ll start you off with a basic rescue mission. After this, you’ll have to pick your own missions from this board. When that happens, you may want to consider picking multiple missions from the same dungeon. Let’s have you try…. This one!”

Amity reached up to the board, grabbed a sheet of paper, and handed it to Ren. It detailed a young Pidgey who had gotten himself stuck at the bottom of Drenched Bluff. It read: _I-I’m in a pickle. I’ve gotten lost in this nasty cave, and I can’t get out! Help! Reward: 2000 Poké + 1 reviver seed. Floor B7._ Ren looked it over, and couldn’t help but imagine there was a reason that Amity had deliberately picked a job with such a high reward. “We have to use our guild badges to send them back when we find them, right?”

“Correct. Once you find the Pidgey, use the guild badge to send them back, and then report back yourself. Do NOT come back without sending back the poor Pidgey. That kind of mistake isn’t going to fly, so don’t mess that part up, okay? This is someone’s life we’re talking about here!”

“All right.” Ren replied. “You can count on us.”

With that, Team Shadows headed out, but not before consulting the map to see where exactly they needed to go. Getting to drenched bluff took a few hours, most of which was spent nervously chattering about the upcoming rescue. When they finally arrived, Ren felt a little bit emotional. Standing outside the entrance to Drenched Bluff gave him the same sort of feeling that entering Mementos for the first time did. Ren put on a confident smile.

“It’s showtime, everyone.” Ren said. “Let’s do this!”


	5. Gettin' Meta with it

Now standing at the entrance to Drenched Bluff, Team Shadows headed in to begin their very first mission. Just as with their previous experiences with mystery dungeons, the entrance closed off behind them, sealing them inside. Not too long after, they found themselves at the first set of stairs to the dungeon. Things seemed to go well for a few floors, which made Ren a little nervous. He knew that the combat training he’d been put through wasn’t for nothing, so he feared the possibility that they were about to be ambushed. He turned to Morgana, saying, “A little too quiet, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Said Morgana. “Let’s keep our eyes peeled.”

Ren didn’t feel like getting ambushed, so he made sure to turn around every once in a while. Sure enough, after 3 floors, he saw an Anorith trying to sneak up on him, with it’s claws raised, prepared to strike.

“We’ve got company!” Ren yelled, smacking his attacker with a swift _knock off_. The Anorith stumbled back, and before it could recover, Morgana followed up with a _Bite._ The Anorith went down after that, but not before a Shellos tried to attack Anya in the brief moment of chaos. Anya was quick to react, however, and quickly hit it with a _fury swipes,_ bringing it down quickly. Without a moment’s hesitation, Team Shadows ran off deeper into the dungeon in order to escape.

“Anyone hurt?” asked Ren.

“All good here,” Replied Morgana.

“I’m fine,” Replied Anya.

After taking a moment to catch their breath, they proceeded on into the dungeon. The next few floors played out similarly. They’d go a while without meeting anyone, and then, they’d get ambushed by 2-3 Pokémon seemingly out of nowhere. After a while of this, they had sustained a couple of injuries, and their morale was slipping. Eventually, they made their way to their destination on floor seven. At this stage, Ren thought it best to converse with his teammates for a moment.

“This is how deep we were supposed to go, right?” He asked.

“That’s what it said on the job listing,” Morgana pointed out. “Where else would it be?”

“Well, I was just wondering how we were going to go about finding our client. We don’t know where, exactly, they are.”

“That’s true,” said Anya. “I guess we’ll just have to do a clean sweep of the whole floor.”

“You’re probably right. I just was worried about getting to them.”

After wandering around the floor for a while, and facing yet another ambush, Team Shadows finally found the pidgey they were asked to save. He had his wing tucked back, and it looked like he was in pain. When he saw team shadows, he suddenly lit up.

“I’m saved! Oh, please get me out of here!” He seemed to fear for his life.

“Right away,” Ren answered. He took out his badge, and then sent the poor guy back to treasure town. He then turned back to his teammates.

“Well? Shall we head back too?” He asked Morgana and Anya.

“You bet!” said Morgana. He was, in fact, so ready to head home that he chose not to wait for his teammates to warp with him. He immediately used his badge to warp straight back to the guild. Ren saw this, and sighed.

“Come on, Anya. We can’t be left behind.”

With that, the two of them followed Morgana and warped back to the guild with him. When they arrived back at the guild, they found Amity waiting for them.

“Good work, you three. I knew you could do it.” Amity seemed to be proud of the three of them. “Let’s meet the client in the Mission board rooms, shall we?”

Back in the mission room, Team shadows found the Pidgey they had just rescued getting some medical attention, looking a little nervous. When he saw team shadows, he seemed to be at ease a little.

“Ah, thank you so much for saving me! Here’s the reward I promised!”

With that, the Pidgey wasted no time in giving Team Shadows the reward, which was, indeed, a reviver seed and two thousand poke. Ren could hardly believe that he was getting this much money from one mission, but he was certainly not complaining. After the Pidgey exited the room, Ren took a moment to celebrate. He turned to his teammates.

“Well? What are we spending this money on?” He asked.

Amity suddenly walked up to him and gave him a stern look. “You won’t be spending much of it, I’m afraid. I need you to give me 1800 of that reward.”

Ren was a little shocked. “What? Why?”

Amity took in a deep breath, and then began to speak. “Running this guild is expensive, you know. We have to pay for all kinds of things. The Members working in the guild itself get paid directly by us, for one thing. Getting random jobs sent to us costs a little money. We’re also paying for much of the development in the town itself, and our partnership with Marowak, and the food in the mess hall. Expenses pile on quick. Therefore, in order to keep ourselves afloat, we need to take a hefty sum of all of your rewards. We take ninety percent of all monetary rewards given by clients. With that money, we can stay in operation without any trouble. Any questions?”

Ren paused for a second. He was hesitant to give up the money, but he knew that it was probably right to give the money to Amity. He sighed, and with a heavy heart, gave up the money to Amity. “Here you go.”

“Thank you, Ren.” Amity then smiled once again. “You’ve all done a great job today. Tomorrow, you’ll start taking jobs on your own. I hope we’ll see some success from you three.”

With that, Amity headed out of the room. Ren felt a little disappointed about giving up the money, but he doubted that he could take it for himself without getting kicked from the guild. That would jeopardize Anya’s desire to become a proper member of the guild, and ruining it for her would probably mean that he’d lose access to the meta-nav tablet that she seemed to have. In truth, that was the reason he needed her. Ren didn’t get very long to ruminate on this, however, as he heard a scratchy voice trying to talk to him.

“Don’t get any ideas, kiddo!”

Ren turned to the source of the voice. He saw a Chatot giving him a stare that looked almost like a mean teacher in school. “Are you talking to me?” He asked.

“Of course I am! The name’s Edmont Chatot, and you’d better respect it! I’m the one who taught newcomers before that Benham went and changed everything around! I’ve got my eye on you, got it?”

“Okay Edmont. We’ll give the money we’re supposed to. Got it.” The more he heard Edmont speak, the more he was reminded of his teachers when he went to Shujin Academy. He was sure to keep that tidbit to himself, though.

“I mean it! I’d better not hear a _Babble_ out of you three about money!” Now done with his angry rant, Edmont stormed off in a huff.

_He’s probably looking to prove himself,_ Ren thought. _I doubt this guy has any kind of authority over us._ Once again ruminating on Anya’s tablet. _How do I get her to start the Phantom Thieves with us, I wonder? I need her to be totally on board._ He then noticed that Anya was muttering something under her breath.

“Babble…” She whispered.

“What is it, Anya?” Ren asked.

“Oh, it’s just that the word he used sounded funny to me. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Is that so…” Ren couldn’t help but think that he’d have to get her to agree to being a phantom thief soon.

* * *

That evening, Benham was sitting anxiously in his office, and team Shadows, the team of new recruits was the cause of his worry. He had, of course, been impressed by the speed at which Team shadows had adjusted to guild life and being an explorer, but that wasn’t exactly what was bothering him. Ordinarily, he’d be put at ease by a new team doing well. The problem? He had yet to receive any kind of dimensional scream since.

Almost as if on cue, Amity walked through the door, and gave him a greeting. “Good evening, Benham. I hope you’re doing well?”

“I’m a bit nervous, Amity. There’s something not quite right with my dimensional scream.”

“A problem? How so?”

“It’s not activating at all. Before this, I was getting dimensional screams at least once every other day, sometimes more. Now, I’m not getting any.”

“Sounds like a problem. You sure about that?”

“…Not entirely. But, I have a few errands I need doing. Why don’t you come with me? I want to make sure.”

“Got it. I guess I should help carry some documents, since you’ll be bumping into everyone?”

“No, I don’t need to bring anything. We’ll just be talking to a few people.”

Benham got up from his desk, and proceeded to walk over to the door to leave the room, with Amity following close behind. _I normally just touch the guild members in order to activate the dimensional scream, but just appearing to bump into everyone on accident would be best in public. In addition to that, striking up a few conversations is also a good way to touch people without arousing attention. Now then, I should probably go to the DHNA, and ask them why they still don’t have those few houses I asked them to build ready yet. It’ll just look like I’m asking about the houses, but the real goal is to activate the dimensional scream._

Heading through the town, he was, of course, noticed. He was the Guildmaster, after all, and one with a rather good reputation, at that. Several people came up to him, wanting to strike up a conversation.

“Hey, Guildmaster Raichu!” Said Keckleon, calling out to Benham from his stall. “What brings you to the center of town? You’re usually cooped up in the guild!”

Benham walked up to him, and nudged him. “I’ve got business to take care of, Keckleon.”

No dimensional scream came to him. This process repeated itself several times on his walk to the department of housing for new arrivals.

“Guildmaster Raichu!”

“Guildmaster!”

“Benham!”

Each time, Benham tried to activate a dimensional scream by touching them somehow, but to no avail. By the time he made it to the department, it was starting to look like his worst fears were about to be confirmed. _If I can’t get my dimensional scream to activate, and it stopped working as soon as I met Ren and Morgana, does that mean that meeting them somehow disabled my ability to see dimensional screams? If so, does that mean my power has been transferred somehow? Or is it lost completely?_

As he was thinking this to himself, the Gothorita working at the front desk noticed him. “Ah! Guildmaster Raichu! What brings you down here tonight?”

Benham walked up to the desk. The department itself, being built on top of sharpedo bluff, resembled the guild in terms of structure, but it was mostly made of cobblestone, rather than being a tent or a glorified cave. That made it the nicest-looking building in the whole town. “I just wanted to talk to the department head. There’s something I need to clarify something with him regarding new developments.” As he spoke, he tapped the Gothorita’s hand on the desk, trying to make sure she didn’t notice.

“Right away. He’s in his office on the floor above. He’s ready to see you at any time.”

As Benham made his way to the office, he made sure to bump into almost everyone on the way and made it look like an accident. Once at the department head’s door, he knocked on the wooden door.

“Ah, who is it at this hour? You’d better---” The department head, a Conkeldurr nearly twice Benham’s size, had a look of shock on his face. “O-Oh! Guildmaster Raichu! What’s the matter?”

Benham walked up to him, stood up in a chair, and placed his hand on the department head’s shoulder. “Listen, Conkeldurr. Nearly two moons ago, I asked you to get started on building a new set of houses for new arrivals, since the houses we had would be nearly full by now. You still haven’t started work, and now we’re almost out of space? What happened?”

“Oh, we’re lacking the materials, and getting the land ready had been difficult. We need to consider all of the trees, and whether we need to clear them or not.”

“You were lacking materials, and you failed to tell me until today?”

“I-“

“Get started quickly, Conkeldurr. We can’t go running out of space in the town. This place lives or dies based on how well we handle newcomers.”

“Understood. I’ll try to get started.”

_Still nothing,_ Benham thought to himself. _This isn’t normal. I’ll have to consider the possibility that my powers just aren’t working as intended._

“All right. Done in a moon’s time, I hope.”

Once back at his office, Amity gave a concerned look, and asked him the obvious question. “Still nothing?”

“Indeed,” Benham responded. “I touched nearly 28 people on that trip alone, way above and beyond the number of people I regularly touch in a day, and not once did my dimensional scream activate. I can only conclude that it’s just not working.”

“When was the last time it triggered, again?” Amity asked.

“That would be when Bibarel gave me his report about what happened in the forest up to the north, when we were first made aware of Ren and Morgana. I Haven’t seen a thing since.”

“Do you think that it’s possible meeting them disabled your use of the Dimensional Scream somehow? I don’t see why meeting them would do anything like that.”

“That would be the case. But there is the fact that Ren and Morgana are humans. I don’t fully understand the mechanism behind the Dimensional Scream, after all. There might be rules in play regarding humans that affect how it functions.”

“I see. If we could identify how it works, we could figure out what went wrong.”

“Exactly. We know that It works differently depending on the time in history that it’s activated, since it only worked in places relevant to time gears in the future. If so, does that mean that it may also work differently after meeting a human?”

“So all we have to figure out is what’s changed?”

“Yes, but that’s easier said than done. Right now, there are three possibilities. The first is that it’s simply been lost. Whether that means it’s gone forever or if it’ll return later, that’s hard to say. In either case, that would be the most disappointing outcome. The second possibility is the most interesting, as well as the easiest to test. The possibility is that the power to use the dimensional scream has been transferred from me to either Ren or Morgana. If they try lying about it, I’ll catch them on it quick. And activating the dimensional scream as we know it would probably happen by accident. If they do have it, we can have them periodically report to us about what they see. Should be interesting. The third, most annoying possibility is that I now have different activation requirements for my dimensional scream. That one’s a pain, because there’s no telling what those new activation requirements might be. We’ll talk to Team Shadows about this sometime tomorrow, in case the second possibility is the truth. For now, we’ll proceed as if I don’t have it, and I’ll out a few different ideas for activation requirements.”

“All right,” Amity said, giving a smile. “I’m sure you’ll get to the bottom of this!”

“Yeah, I’ll try my hardest…”

* * *

Back in the base, Anya had found herself feeling a little anxious. She had finally done something that was a lifelong goal for her, she was finally an explorer. And yet, she felt a strange uneasiness inside of her that she just couldn’t comprehend. It almost felt like she was doing something wrong.

_I can’t keep thinking like this,_ She thought to herself. _I want to be an explorer! I have to!_

Unable to deal with the conflicting emotions in her head, she turned to her tablet to distract herself for a moment. She felt it calling out to her, as if it was something important to her. In truth, she had no recollection of such a tablet before finding it on the altar in the mystery dungeon. Scratching words into the tablet had become something of a hobby, not anything resembling a mission or her fate. It certainly didn’t hurt to try it, though. As she looked onto the tablet, she realized Ren and Morgana were looking over her shoulder.

“O-oh, what is it?” She asked, a little startled by them sneaking up on her.

“You said that you liked writing words on the tablet. Could you show us?” Ren asked in return.

“Oh, that. I just like writing funny words I hear on the tablet. They usually just disappear.”

To demonstrate, she wrote the word ‘disappear’ on the tablet. As she did, it almost immediately vanished. “See?” she said. “Weird, right?”

“It’s certainly something. You said something about certain words sticking around?” Morgana asked.

“Oh, right. I don’t really know that many, but one is ‘castle’.” As she said this, she wrote ‘castle’ into the tablet, and it stuck around for what Anya had determined to be about 4 minutes before finally disappearing from the tablet.

“Were you about to try new words to see what happens just now?” Ren asked.

“Yeah. It helps me calm down a bit…” Anya paused for as second to think. _What was that word Chatot said to Ren yesterday? Babel?_

Without thinking about it too hard, she wrote the word ‘Babel’ into the tablet. She expected it to either fade for stick around for the usual four minutes, but this time, much to Anya’s surprise, it began to give off a faint crimson glow. Immediately after, the words ‘Beginning navigation’ flashed across the top of the tablet, above the symbol. Before she could even react, her entire world seemed to melt around her. She immediately panicked, and fell to the ground, covering her head, and started breathing really hard.

“C-Calm down!” As she heard Ren speak, she felt a firm hand being placed down on her shoulder. “Focus on my voice!”

Anya, still breathing hard, tried her best to focus on what Ren was saying.

“Concentrate on my voice until it’s all that you hear! Slow down your breathing.” Ren paused a moment, and then spoke again. “Imagine you’re in a boat at sea. Think of the waves, going up and down. Waves go up, inhale. Waves go down, exhale. Up, down, up, down….”

As she listened to Ren repeat that last part over and over, she slowly started to calm down. Finally calmed down, she opened her eyes, and found herself at the base of the mountain where she met the Absol family, but something was amiss. In fact, lots of things were amiss. What once was a relatively average-sized mountain had transformed into a massive behemoth that seemed to pierce the heavens with it’s sheer size. The clouds obscuring the top were jet black, yet not at all looking like storm clouds. The sky itself was a fierce shade of red that almost hurt Anya’s eyes to look at. The Mountain itself was covered in black trees, and the caves dotting it glowed yellow. The rivers flowing down it were red in color, just like the sky. The sight of it was intimidating.

“Are you alright?” She heard Ren ask.

Anya turned around to answer. “Yeah, I-“

What she saw was, perhaps, far more shocking than the mountain itself. Both Ren and Morgana had transformed into beings that were practically unrecognizable. Morgana still kind of resembled a dark-type Meowth, but now he had contrasting white and black fur all over his body, was wearing a yellow scarf, had a belt with all sorts of compartments all over it. In addition, he was now holding a pirate-looking sword at his side that seemed much to big for him. Ren, on the other hand, had completely transformed. He now completely towered over Anya, and his body seemed to completely lack fur, save for his head. He was wearing strange garments covering his entire body, save for red hands, and he was wearing a strange mask obscuring what seemed to be a much flatter face. He also had a cape, with some strange-looking tools at his waits. He stood upright, and the very sight of him was almost monstrous. Anya was a little bit scared, but she was still much calmer than before. He then crouched down so that he was eye level with Anya, and then smiled.

“Good to see you’re okay. Entering the metaverse for the first time is bewildering, is it not?”

Anya was a little taken aback. “H-Hang on! What’s going on? How did we get here? Why do you look so weird?”

“Calm down. We’ll try to explain everything as we walk.”

After starting to walk closer to the mountain, which Anya thought might not be the same place after all, Ren spoke again.

“Anya, do you ever wonder what makes someone, someone?”

“I don’t really know. What you do?”

“You’re not entirely wrong. It’s your memories and experiences that give rise to your personality and desires, and as you keep on living, those memories and experiences keep evolving and changing. Of course, those desires and personalities go on to color how you view the world around you. Sometimes, it’s not an entirely accurate picture. The ways we view the world can become distorted, changed from what the world really is. It’s pretty common for most people to have at least a little bit of a distortion about how they view the world. However, some people have far more powerful distortions, and when their desires and personality become distorted enough, places like this can be formed in their minds. This is a dimension known as the metaverse, and we call places like these ‘palaces’, the centers of distortion itself.”

“The centers of distortion?”

“Yes. The tablet you had is what is known as a metaverse navigator, and it allows the user to enter and explore palaces of distorted people if they know the person’s name, the real-world equivalent of the palace, and how it’s distorted. That’s why the words that you wrote on the tablet kept disappearing. It was looking for those three things.”

“Hold on. If I need to write down those three things, then why did it manage to send us to a palace when I only wrote down the word ‘Babel’?”

Morgana piped up, as if he was waiting for this moment. “That’s because this is probably a type of palace that doesn’t originate from a single person. Many people have distortions, but not palaces. Those leftover distortions collect and pool, and when brought together, are capable of making one super-palace. You can think of this place as the palace for a huge collection of people. ‘Babel’ is probably the name of this place.”

“Interesting…” Anya paused. “So, why do you guys look so different?”

“That’s because this is how we view ourselves. The metaverse as a whole is ruled by the mind. When we enter it, our true forms take hold.”

“So, why do you look so weird, Ren?”

Ren laughed. “This is what a human looks like, Anya.”

As they continued on to a cave entrance, Anya found herself feeling almost exactly the same way as she did back in the hut. Staring into the eerie yellow darkness made her feel like she was somewhere she didn’t belong, that she was out-of-place somehow. And yet, the rational part of her knew that this was exactly the type of thing she needed to be doing.

“Are you sure about this?” asked Ren. “The metaverse can be very dangerous. The creatures lurking inside palaces can be dangerous, and this place seems way to big to explore in a few hours, or even weeks.”

“No, I wanna see what’s inside. I’ve already come this far.”

“All right. Let’s head in.”

As they continued into Babel, Anya started hearing strange noises. “Hey, what are all of those sounds? We aren’t going to be ambushed, are we?”

“Most likely,” Ren responded, “Those are the shadows.”

“The Shadows?”

“Basically, they’re all the little distortions of the people that the palace belongs to,” Morgana explained. “Most of the weaker distortions get caught up in living masses, which create monstrous shadows that need to be run from or fought off, like the inhabitants of a mystery dungeon. For stronger distortions, they don’t usually combine with other ones, instead creating a distorted version of the person who initially had the distortions. They tend to be as strong or stronger than the other variety. If the distortions are strong enough, that shadow then goes on to create it’s own palace, and the monstrous shadows can get sucked in, and then re-distorted to fit the mold of the new palace.”

“So an ordinary palace would have only one person-like shadow controlling it and monstrous shadows warped to fit the palace roaming around, but this place has tons of them?”

“Basically.”

“This is all so complicated….” Anya lamented.

“It is a lot to take in, that’s for sure.”

Just as Morgana stopped talking, Anya heard a much louder noise from around the corner. It sounded almost like a groan, as if a massive Ursaring stubbed his toe. It made Anya freeze, as this was the first time since entering Babel that she knew for certain that there was something else alive in here. Immediately, Ren and Morgana inched towards the corner to peer around it, and Anya followed suit.

What Anya saw was truly deserving of the title of ‘monster’. Its body was a fleshy jet black, and was the shape of a blob. it’s head was only possible to locate because of the two red eyes on the top. The only other features were the stubby poles that seemed to extend out of the mass, which just barely resembled limbs. And there were dozens of these things in the hallway Team Shadows was peering down.

“Are those-“ Anya started asking.

“Shadows,” Ren answered. “A whole lot of them. Way more than we can handle.” After saying this, Ren turned back around the corner. “Shall we call it quits for the day? We won’t be able to progress much further down this tunnel, and we probably don’t have the time to try another entrance.”

“Agreed.” Morgana said. “It’s best to try again another day at this point. We need more allies before we get ourselves into a fight like this.”

“All right,” Anya said. She felt almost relieved to be leaving, but she was also a little disappointed at not getting to see the whole thing. Still, she just couldn’t shake the feeling of safety she felt in leaving. She contemplated this as she walked back to the cave entrance with Ren and Morgana. Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by a voice that sounded eerily like hers.

“Yeah, that’s right, run. You shouldn’t be doing anything else.” For some reason, the voice didn’t sound mocking so much as it sounded reassuring.

Anya whipped around, and saw something that she, in the moment, couldn’t quite comprehend. A being that looked almost like her, save for creepy yellow eyes. Her shadow.


	6. I'll confront myself

Seeing the situation in front of him, Ren felt a little nervous. This could prove dangerous if it went poorly, but if it went well, it could lead to Anya unlocking her persona. It depended on how Anya reacted to her shadow, and how the shadow reacted in turn. If it went poorly, they’d certainly have to retreat if the shadow proved to powerful…

“What are you waiting for, exactly?” The shadow derided. “You know you want to run away, just like you’ve always done. Isn’t that obvious to you?”

“T-That’s wrong!” Anya said, with a certain shakiness in her tone of voice. “I’ve always wanted to be an explorer! That’s why I came all of this way!”

_Anya’s trying to deny her shadow,_ Ren thought. _This isn’t good. I’ll have to step in at this rate._

The shadow laughed, almost encouragingly. “Come now, Anya. You are many things, but you are hardly an explorer. You never even _wanted_ to be an explorer, with all of those risks you would have to take for the sake of other people, including needing to round up criminals like your dad. You’re someone who just wanted to run away from the dangerous life your father led, right?”

“H-how do you know that? You don’t even know me! I don’t know who you are!” Anya seemed almost desperate to hide something.

The shadow seemed like she had been waiting for this moment. It cackled in the most jovial tone for several seconds, and then finally spoke.

“I… am you,” The shadow finally said. “Admit it, Anya. You’ve always felt this way.”

_This is going south fast._ Ren thought. _I’d better step in._

“Anya-“ Ren started. Before he could finish what he had to say, however, He was swiftly interrupted by Anya’s response to her shadow.

“You’ve got it all wrong! You’re not me! You could never be me!” She screamed this as loud as she could.

The shadow, seeing this, began cackling even harder. Ren felt an immense amount of energy suddenly pulse outwards from the shadow, which could only mean one thing. Anya collapsed onto the floor, falling unconscious, as a dark fog suddenly began swirling around the shadow. Once it was completely obscured by the fog, it rose off the ground, and morphed into a sphere. Then, it sprouted four wings, and a red smile appeared on it’s face. It’s body became purple in color, and it began to move very quickly in the air.

“I am a shadow….. The true self!” It said. “I just want to run away, and never be found again!”

With that, the shadow dove directly at Anya’s unconscious body. Barely managing to react on time, Ren summoned Arsene and managed to protect Anya with a swift _Eigaon_ directly at the shadow. Moving quickly, he took Anya into his arms, and jumped back with Morgana. The shadow quickly moved straight up to them, and unleashed a gust of wind that knocked Ren and Morgana to the ground.

“Why?” The shadow pleaded, with a manic tone to it is voice. “Why do you refuse to run away? That’s what you want!” It seemed to be speaking directly to Anya, despite the fact that she was unconscious.

Quickly, Morgana patched up the three of them with a _Mediarama_ after summoning zorro. Ren prepared to fire off another attack, but the shadow seemed to have other plans. Before he could even react, it managed to slam right into him, hitting him hard, and almost seemed to purposefully avoid hurting Anya.

_It’s so strong!_ Ren thought. _How do we even begin to fight this with just Morgana and I?_ The answer, it seemed, was to suppress it’s movement somehow. He called out to Morgana. “We need to slow it down! That’s the only way we can beat it!”

Without missing a beat, Morgana prepared to fire off a _Masukunda,_ but before he could fully prepare the skill, the shadow slammed into him, knocking him closer to where Ren was. Undeterred, Morgana got up and fired off a _Garudyne._ This seemed to be effective at first, but the shadow quickly recovered, and fired back an even more vicious wind skill. It didn’t take long for both Ren and Morgana to be blown off their feet.

“Ren, this isn’t looking good! Do we run?” Morgana asked. As he did, he patched the three of them up with a _Mediarahan._

Ren weighed his options in his mind. This shadow was rapidly proving to be too much for the both of them to handle. If they stayed and fought, and were actually successful, the following interaction with Anya’s shadow could be very fruitful. On the other hand, if they lost, who knows what would happen to them, defeated inside of the metaverse? In all likelihood, nobody would come to their aid. They might actually die. If they used the meta-nav to run now, they could escape with their lives, and would probably be able to teach Anya about personas outside of such a dangerous environment. It was starting to look like staying in the metaverse would be a bad decision.

“We’re getting out of here!” Ren yelled, running over to Morgana, and pulling the meta-nav out of Anya’s bag. The shadow seemed to be oddly content with this outcome, and suddenly stopped attacking them.

“That’s right… Run. Run away to the hills, where you’ll never be found…”

Not even stopping to consider what the shadow was saying, Ren triggered the meta-nav. It glowed a bright crimson, and Ren was overcome with that same familiar feeling. The world around him began to melt away, distorting, and turning into a mess of colors. Then the physical forms began to fade back in once more, as Ren felt Anya grow in his arms, as he was shrinking back into the form of a Zorua. Beside him, Morgana had already shifted back into the form of an Alolan Meowth. Finally, they found themselves back in the hut where they were staying, now much, much later at night.

“What a relief….” Morgana exclaimed. “That thing was ready to maul us…”

“No kidding,” Responded Ren. “I don’t think it was just trying to beat us, though. I think it was trying to take Anya with itself….”

“Probably nowhere in particular. I imagine it was just trying to run away, where nobody could find it, like it said.”

Ren looked at the still-unconscious Anya. The sight of her still unconscious made Ren a little uneasy. “I Guess Anya’s been having doubts about this from the very beginning, huh?”

“She must have. I bet she doesn’t fully feel like she should be here even now.”

“Still, she deserves an explanation as to what just happened.”

As if on cue, Anya suddenly stirred. She looked around, confused, and seemed to be almost relieved to be back in the hut. She turned to Ren and Morgana.

“I just had the weirdest dream.. You guys looked all weird, and-“

“That wasn’t a dream, Anya. That was real,” Ren interjected. “And that was indeed your shadow.”

“A-All of that was real just now?” Anya asked, seeming shocked. “But it was so crazy….”

“Yeah, the metaverse can seem pretty crazy if you’re seeing it for the first time. You’ll get used to it after going there a couple of times. Don’t worry about it,” Morgana reassured her.

Anya paused. She seemed almost afraid to keep speaking, but did anyway. “So, that means that the thing that looked like me….”

“That was indeed your shadow. Your true self,” Ren responded.

“Does that mean there’s something wrong with me?”

“Not necessarily. Many people have shadows, Anya. You just need to come to terms with yours.”

“B-but I…”

“You must realize that what your shadow was saying is true, right? You need to come to terms with those emotions. Find your will to rebel within them.”

Anya looked down, and then away from Ren and Morgana. “I’m going to sleep…..” She said. When she fell asleep, it didn’t take long for Ren and Morgana to follow. Today was an exhausting day.

* * *

After giving the morning address, Benham sat down in his office, and waited. He’d asked Amity to bring Team Shadows into his office to talk about the possibility of the dimensional scream passing onto either Ren or Morgana, as he’d planned. Thinking about it now gave him a strange feeling of excitement. _If Ren or Morgana has the dimensional scream, does that mean that there’s something important going on in the world at large? Sounds interesting, but that’s pure speculation. If I still have it, then it’s probably not that. Still, that old Blaziken named Ginji all the way on the air continent and I are the only known humans to ever come to this world, and both arrivals preceeded massive calamities that were barely averted, so maybe it’s more than just a conspiracy theory._ Benham’s dive into what he though was a stretch was cut short by Amity and team shadows coming in through the door.

“You wanted to see us, guildmaster?” Ren asked.

“Right. I have something very important to ask you. Two things, rather.” Benham noted that the three of them looked a little rough. “First, to Ren and Morgana. Do you remember the circumstances under which you came to this world?”

“Not particularly,” Ren responded. “We both went to bed one night and woke up in new bodies.”

_I can’t see any reason why they would lie about that. That doesn’t leave me with much to go off of…_ Benham thought. _Onto the real question.._ As he thought this, he walked over to where Ren was standing and placed both hands on his neck fluff. He planned to do this for a long time, and to ask a few carefully-worded questions. It was possible that those could be the new activation requirements that he was after.

“Second, again to Ren and Morgana. Have you had any strange visions since you came to this world or since you arrived in treasure town, like voices you recognize, or seeing things before they happen?”

“No, I haven’t,” Ren answered.

“Same here,” Morgana added.

“If you haven’t, I recommend you go around bumping random strangers. You see, I have this power called the dimensional scream. Ordinarily, if I touch someone in the presence of a trusted partner, I can receive such visions.” Benham now leaned closer to Ren. “However, ever since your arrival here in town about a week ago, I haven’t seen a thing. I normally can get one every other day just by doing things I’d ordinarily do, so it’s very disconcerting to me.”

“And what does that have to do with me and Morgana?” Ren asked.

“I have a few theories about what might have happened to my power. It could be the case that power has either been lost or made harder to activate somehow, but something that may have happened is that is was somehow transferred from me to one of you.”

“How could that even happen?”

“That, I don’t know. But as long as it remains true that it just happened to stop working for me as soon as I met you, I can’t dismiss that possibility.”

“You said that you got one nearly every other day? If we haven’t seen anything, then doesn’t that mean we couldn’t have it?” Morgana asked.

“That would be true, if not for the fact that the rate at which I see these visions seems to speed up as I get older. I used to only get one a moon at most.”

“So you’re saying that we could have it and just not know it?”

“Exactly. For that reason, I’d like to have you three report back to me immediately if you just happen to see anything unusual. If you hear so see something, say something. Got it?”

“Got it!” Ren responded.

“Oh, and one more thing. If you do happen to get it, don’t think it’s going to be easy to use. All it does is give you information. The effectiveness of that is going to depend on your ability to act on it, despite how powerful that can be. Do I make myself clear?”

“Sure thing, Guildmaster.” Morgana said.

“All right.” Benham said. “You’re dismissed for now.”

As Team Shadows left the office, Benham could shake the nervous feeling from his previous thoughts. _What if there really is a disaster headed to this world? If they’re here to stop that and don’t know it…_

“Something bothering you?” Amity asked, breaking his train of thought.

“Just a nervous thought,” Benham responded.

Amity looked concerned. “That nervous thought being?”

“Do you remember what we did all of those years ago? Saved the world?”

“Yes?”

“The anniversary of that happening is in a few days. Back then, we had a goal in mind, a vision. We wanted to prevent the paralysis of the planet. And we succeeded. As if it were something we were meant to do. The previous human to come to this world, A Blaziken named Ginji, also had to prevent a massive, world-ruining calamity, that being the overwhelming amount of natural disasters. That old coot always said something that was extremely interesting to me. He claimed to have some kind of spirit guide, a gardevoir that came to him in his sleep that gave him guidance and told him that his purpose was, in fact, to save the world. Let’s assume that a similar guardian existed for me, but I lost my connection to it due to amnesia. Could that guide have influenced my actions in the future, before my memory was wiped? And it so, should there have been a guide to Ren as well? Maybe I’m overthinking this; I mean, this is all baseless conjecture. But if Ren and Morgana have come here because they needed to avert some grand tragedy, and they have no idea, should I be worried?”

“I guess that could be a problem. But if there’s big trouble, won’t that be obvious to everyone? It’s not like massive calamities tend to go by unnoticed.”

Benham sighed. “You’re certainly right about that. I just found it a little concerning. After all, humans don’t come to this world very often. It should be a sign of something bigger.”

Amity smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Benham. You’re Guildmaster Raichu! The person who stopped the planet’s paralysis! And you’re one heck of a good fighter, too! If there’s anyone who can handle it, You can!”

“Thank you, Amity.” Benham felt that he almost didn’t deserve someone as good as Amity. She’d been with him, unwavering, through almost every trouble he’d experienced. She was an amazing partner. “Now then. We should brainstorm potential new activation requirements for my dimensional scream. I think we can rule out touching for a prolonged period of time. I had my hands on Ren’s neck fluff for almost that entire conversation, so if it needs more time touching to activate, then it’s probably for far too long it be useful. Asking the right questions doesn’t seem to work, either.”

“Does that leave us with anything else obvious?”

“The most obvious is that there’s some keyword. Other than that, it starts to feel like grasping at straws.”

“All right. I guess we’re heading out tonight?”

“Not tonight. I just went out last night, after all. I’ll just wait a few days for the anniversary of us saving the world to come around. It’s less suspicious that way. Besides, I need time to think on this.”

“Got it,” Amity responded. “I’ll make reservations for the anniversary right away.”

* * *

That evening, as Anya was sitting awake in her bed, she couldn’t help but think about what she saw in the metaverse. _Maybe I really do just want to run away…._ She even considered doing exactly that. Maybe it was right to just act on that instinct. At the same time, she wanted to be at the guild, and she wanted to stick by Ren and Morgana. If she ran away, she’d lose everything she’d worked to obtain. _I want to stay! I don’t want to give into fear!_ _But I can’t shake this feeling…_

She instinctively reached for the meta-nav, and just as she was about to scribble in a few words, she stopped. _The only way to keep going is to face my emotions…. To face her._ Anya stared at the meta-nav for a few seconds. _I have to do this._ With a determined expression on her face, Anya stood up, went outside, and wrote down the word ‘Babel’ on the meta-nav. Instantly, the world around her began to melt just as it had before, but this time, she knew what to expect. As it faded back into a solid form, she recognized that she was back at Babel, but this time, she was alone.

Walking up the mountain, Anya found herself feeling an unusual amount of fear. Once at the cave entrance she had previously gone to with Ren and Morgana, she could feel it almost boiling over, and she started panting. _Just breath, Anya. Remember the boat, and the waves…. Waves go up, waves go down._ She slowly began to calm her breathing, and once she was relatively calm again, she proceeded. _Don’t panic._

As she kept walking deeper into the cave, Anya began to feel as if something was watching her. She stopped at once. _This is it, Anya. You need to confront yourself, here and now._ Drawing in a deep breath, Anya turned around, and she saw none other than her shadow.

“What, are you stupid or something?” The shadow remarked. “Or are you just that deep in denial? You must know by now that running away is what you want to do.”

“We need to talk,” Anya responded. “Because we can’t just run away.”

“Why not? Nobody is forcing you to stay here. You could just abandon everything.”

“If I did that, then I’d never get to do anything else I wanted to do. Running away isn’t going to get me my dreams and wishes. Besides, if I just keep running from my problems, then they’ll just keep popping back up.”

“Then just keep running from them.”

“If I do that, I’ll never be happy! I don’t want to live a life ruled by my own fear! I want to be someone I can be proud of!”

“You think denying your emotions is going to keep you happy?” Anya’s shadow was getting progressively angrier.

“I’m not denying them! It’s true! I do want to run away…. But I don’t want to do that forever. I want to accomplish my goals in life. So I’m going to push forward in spite of my fears and anxieties!” Anya paused for a moment, and then pointed at her shadow. “And I want you to come with me. We’ll push on forward… together!” In this moment, Anya truly was feeling afraid, even if she meant every word.

Anya’s shadow seemed shocked, and then backed off, taking up a defensive stance. “Come any closer, and I’ll make you regret it.”

Anya, however, wasn’t going to just back down. Instead, she took in a deep breath and started walking towards her shadow, determined to face it head-on. The shadow did not seem to respond well to this.

“Stay away!” The shadow screamed, with winds suddenly billowing out from behind it. The winds pushed back on Anya, and even stung a little. The shadow began to levitate itself with winds, and started hurling stones at Anya. Anya barely managed to keep walking forward and avoid the shadow’s attempts to hurt her at the same time. As she did, one particularly jagged rock managed to cut her arm, giving her a nasty wound, but even so, she pushed through the pain just to get closer to her shadow.

“You’re just hurting yourself! All you need to do is run away!”

“I can’t run away anymore!”

Anya kept pushing forward, and as she did, the winds changed course to focus towards the shadow. The shadow moved herself much faster with the winds and smashed through the walls of the cave in order to get away, and Anya gave chase as best she could. The shadow kept going deeper and deeper into the dungeon, and kept trying to leave little traps as she went to dissuade Anya. Still, Anya persisted. As she did, she did her best to control her breathing, and not give in to her own fear, despite how strong it felt.

Now much deeper into the cave then ever before, the shadow found herself backed into a corner. Reacting quickly, she redirected her winds squarely at Anya, knocking her back in the process. She then turned back to Anya, slowly smashing up the walls behind her.

“Running away is what you have to do! It’s all you ever wanted to do!”

Anya got back up to her feet. “It’s true that I’m scared. Terrified, even. But I want to live my life for more than fear. I want to face the world, no matter how much it scares me! I’m doing that right now because that’s the only way to be happy. That’s the only way to be free!” 

“I… I.. I…” Anya’s shadow was stuttering. It seemed to be struggling to even process the situation. “GO AWAY!”

At once, Anya was hit with an even stronger gust of wind. This time, she didn’t get knocked down. Instead, she pushed back with all of her might. As she kept pushing forwards, her shadow seemed to panic more and more. Her shadow crouched down, and started breathing hard. As Her shadow did this, the winds she was producing became more and more wild and frantic. Anya was almost thrown off of her balance by these more erratic winds, but even so, she pressed forwards, inching closer and closer to her shadow. Finally, she got close enough to touch her shadow, and as she did, she wrapped her arms around it.

“Calm down. Closer your eyes and focus on my voice. Just breathe.”

Anya’s shadow closed her eyes as she said, and seemed to try to concentrate on Anya’s voice.

“Just imagine the boat at sea. Waves go up, waves go down. Waves go up, waves go down. Waves go up waves go down. Waves go up, waves go down…..”

As Anya repeated this line over and over, she felt not only herself calm down, but also her shadow. The winds gradually slowed, and eventually the air in the cave became still once more.

“Are you feeling better?” She asked.

“Y-yeah… are you really not going to run away?”

“Like I said, I’m scared. I absolutely am. But I’m not going to let that define who I am. And I know that you’re scared, too. You’re scared because you don’t think you can really make it at the guild. You’re scared because you’re me.”

As she said this, she felt tears stream down her face. She hearing herself say this made her cry. Her shadow really was her. Every word she said was meant for herself. As she did, she felt a warm glow envelop herself. She felt her shadow melt into herself, and suddenly her head began to ring, and she heard her shadow’s voice as she now closed her eyes.

_Let us form a contract._

_I am thou, thou art I._

_From this day forward, we will run towards what we seek, not away._

_This cave shall be our starting line._

Anya felt something resembling goggles on her face, and had a strong urge to rip it off. As she did, she opened her eyes, and felt her own blood dripping down. When she looked down at herself, she discovered herself wearing strange garments. They were black in color, and looked almost frilled like they were had to be easier to run in. They covered both her upper body and her arms, and on her back, she discovered a pair of non-functioning black wings with purple membranes. As he looked back, she saw it. Her shadow had seemingly transformed into something else. It was much taller and sleeker, with similar wings to the ones on her back, but they were where the arms should be, and were much bigger. She was wearing goggles that were tinted red, and her other Sneasel-like features had disappeared.

“I understand…. Payne.” As these words left her mouth, her new persona faded, and she felt the goggles reappear on her face. Suddenly, she was overcome with exhaustion, and collapsed.

“What…. Now…..” she managed to get out before sinking deeply into unconsciousness. As she did, she caught a glimse of someone’s legs. They looked long and jet-black, but seemed to also have grey and purple stripes. This was all she could make out before passing out.


	7. Pancakes

Sitting down at the table inside a safe room, Goro Akechi sighed. His nearly two-week-long foray into a mysterious palace had brought him quite a lot of stress. First, he had just finished getting his behind handed to him at the hands of Shido’s cognitive imitation of himself to help Ren get the revenge he never could, and nearly died. Then, he wakes up in some bizarre palace that was kind of like mementos, but not really, and sees all kinds of strange shadows that looked to be… Pokémon? What? Then, out of nowhere, some ribbon girl wannabe shows up with her weird white furball of a companion, who claimed that they need to fight ‘you witch scum’, and had made Akechi agree to fight her on what was supposedly today. Now, he’d stumbled upon some newbie persona user who had immediately collapsed after summoning her persona, and for some reason, he’d given her shelter in his little hidey hole of a safe room so she didn’t get mauled by the first shadow who came across her unconscious body. And this one was Pokémon, too. Looking at her 8 full hours later, he took a little pity on her for not getting to let loose with her new persona after summoning it. She’d need some practice before she could take on the relatively powerful shadows roaming around this part of the palace.

“It’s off to Goro Akechi’s bootcamp with you as soon as you wake up,” he muttered, starting to get a little irritated by her continued unconsciousness. “How much could unlocking your persona possibly take out of you?”

Goro Akechi turned his attention to the satchel that the girl was carrying. _Oh, right, the satchel. I almost forgot about this thing…._ He’d planned to hesitate to open the thing up until after the small Sneasel girl had awoken, but now the suspense was killing him. _Alright, what secrets are you keeping from me?_ He opened it up, and at first, he didn’t see anything too interesting. He found a map, a piece of charcoal for writing, a few seeds, a few berries, and a weird medal thing. Also inside the satchel were posters that looked like they were some kind of call for help. They all seemed to specify specific locations where someone had either gotten lost or lost an item, but Akechi was left wondering how they’d even been sent in the first place. Looking at the map again, he saw that all of the locations were marked on the map, as well as many other places.

_Is she some kind of Scout or something? That’s the only way I could think of for these posters to exist._

Turning back to the satchel, Akechi also found a tablet inside. On one side, it was completely blank, save for the word ‘Babel’ in the top left corner. The other side of the tablet, however, had Akechi taken aback with shock. It bore the distinctive symbol of the meta-nav and had a space below where the keywords could presumably be entered. This immediately sent Akechi into a speculative frenzy. _She just happened to have a meta-nav on her? No, of course she did! She must have come from outside the palace, unlike me! Is ‘Babel’ the name of this palace, then? How’d she learn to use it, let alone the name of the place? Did she really get that kind of blind luck? Gah! New plan! I interrogate this girl for everything she knows, and get the hell out of here with the meta-nav!_

Almost as if on cue, the sneasel girl stirred for the first time in hours. She rose slowly, and looked around, rubbing her eyes a little, and finally saw Akechi, jumped a little, as she must have been intimidated by his black mask form, and opened her mouth to speak.

“How… how long was I out?”

“Eight hours,” Akechi responded.

“A-Arceus! I’ve gotta go!” She reached immediately for the meta-nav, but Akechi swiped it up and held it out of reach.

“Hey! Give it back!” She attempted to swipe at Akechi, but was quickly stopped by his sword, which was lying on the table.

“Not so fast, you runt! I’ve got a few questions, and you’re going to answer them truthfully, lest you risk mortal peril!” Akechi didn’t plan on using deadly force, but he found it to be an effective interrogation technique nevertheless. “First of all, who are you and who gave you this?”

“My name is Anya. I found that tablet in a cave very far away….” She seemed a little nervous when talking.

“Next question. Who showed you how to use this to get to this place?”

“M-My friends Ren and Morgana. The said it was something called a meta-nav, and they said this place is a palace. They said that this one is special because you only needed the one word when you normally need three.”

_Ren and Morgana? The Phantom Theives! Did they discover this place because she just happened to write down the right word? Through sheer luck? That’s a lot more believable if it’s like mementos… Still, that just increases the number of questions I need answered…_

“When did you meet these two?”

“I met them almost two weeks ago, and we went on a big journey together to join the local guild. They seemed to know a lot about places like this when I first entered yesterday….”

“You’re positive that it was just them?”

“Absolutely!”

Akechi sighed. This could only mean that the phantom thieves had been separated somehow. _Is there some reason for that? In any case, I need to find out exactly how much she knows._

“Tell me everything they told you about palaces and the metaverse.”

“Uh…. They said that shadows are people’s distortions, and that strong shadows can have places like this all to their own? They also told me that this it depends on your mind, and that I need keywords to go to places like this? That’s the short version of what they told me….”

“They told you nothing about personas or the stealing of hearts, and didn’t mention their history with places like this?”

“I… don’t think they did?”

“Great… Now I’ve got to play teacher.” Akechi took in a deep breath, and they started to explain. “You see, distorted desires aren’t destined to remain as such. People can go through life-altering events that force them to change their outlook on the world. This causes them to have a ‘change of heart’, so to speak. Using the metaverse, one can forcefully induce such a change of heart through the shadow of that person, but only if the desires are warped enough. I’ll spare you the details for now and just say that there are two kinds of forced changing of heart. The first is where you confront the shadow directly, and force it to change, called ‘stealing the heart’. The second is what you went through. When someone confronts their own shadow, and recognizes their own distorted desires, or sometimes, when they’re just running around the metaverse, they can undergo what is called an ‘awakening’. This allows them to call upon the power of their shadow, transforming it into what is known as a persona, the power of your very own heart. That’s what you went through before you passed out in the cave.”

“My persona? So I’ve got some kind of magical power now?”

“Indeed. This is the very same power that your ‘friends’ Ren and Morgana wield. They use it all the time to change hearts and fight shadows, and they were part of a group of criminals known as The Phantom Thieves.”

“They said that they exposed a few people, but I never thought that they could just change people with the metaverse… Can you teach me how to use mine?”

Akechi placed his hand on Anya’s shoulder. “I’d love to, but I’ve been bumming around this hellhole for far too long. Let’s get out of here.”

As he activated the meta-nav, Akechi wondered what kind of world awaited him on the other side. _With any luck, ribbon girl won’t be hunting me down anytime soon._ He noticed Anya looking up at him with some concern.

“Who… are you?”

“The name’s Goro Akechi,” Akechi responded. “Don’t forget it.”

* * *

Early in the morning, Benham was minding his own business as he prepared to open the guild for the day. _Hope Ren sees something soon. Save me the trouble of looking for new triggers for the dimensional scream._ As he saw the guild members file into the mess hall, he noticed something was amiss. Ren and Morgana were there, but Anya wasn’t. Ren and Morgana also looked like something was bothering the two of them. As soon as they saw him, they approached him.

“Anya’s missing. When we woke up this morning, she was gone,” Ren said in a worried tone.

_Anya’s missing?_ Benham thought. “Talk to me in my office after today’s briefing.”

After giving the briefing, Benham went into his office, and Ren and Morgana followed him.

“So, Anya’s missing, is she? You two know anything else?” He asked the duo.

“Not that we could tell.” Ren seemed very concerned about her whereabouts. “She seemed really nervous about being a member of the guild, though.”

“You’re saying that might be why she ran away?”

“Probably.”

“And you want to take the day off to go looking for her?”

“How did you-“

“It’s written all over your face. Besides, finding Anya surely takes precedence over your duties to the guild, correct? If that’s the case, I’ll allow it.”

“Thank you, guildmaster.”

“That being said…..” Benham took on a more confrontational tone of voice. “I’ll also go looking for her with Amity. We’ll cover more ground that way, yes?”

“Rogger that. We’ll come back to you if we find her.”

With that, Benham, Amity, Ren, and Morgana all exited the guild to go look for Amity. Ren and Morgana decided to look through town for her, while Benham and Amity went looking for her down by the beach. Benham anticipated that this was where she’d be, if anywhere. It didn’t make much sense for a runaway or a kidnapper to still be in town.

As he walked down the beach, Benham looked around, not expecting to see anything right away. He kept walking down beach, looking around, but failed to really see anything. After that, he decided to double around, but before he could turn around, Amity stopped him.

“Look!” she said.

Walking in the bushes _towards_ town, he saw Anya. He was a little shocked to see her still this close to town, but even more surprising was the fact that she was walking with a pawniard that Benham had never seen before. Both of them looked more than worse for wear.

“Hey! Where have you been?” He called out. “Your teammates have been looking for you, you know!”

Anya seemed a little shocked to see Benham, but quickly came running over. When Benham got a closer look at her, he realized that her arm had been cut pretty badly, and Benham had a feeling that the pawniard might be responsible.

“S-Sorry Guildmaster! I went out at night because I was lost in my thoughts, then I found this guy, and….”

“And who would ‘This guy’ be?”

The pawniard spoke. “That’s Akechi, to you. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Benham sighed. Clearly, something had happened between these two for the apparent injuries to form on their bodies, but Benham wasn’t going to interrogate them here. Getting Anya back to Ren and Morgana took priority. “In any case, they’re looking for you. Come with me.”

After finding Ren and Morgana in town, he called out to them, and as soon as he did, they came running. “Anya!” Ren said. “Where were you?”

“I was just out for the night….” Anya responded. She definitely seemed to be hiding something from Ren and Morgana. “I got Akechi over here out of some trouble….” The moment she spoke Akechi’s name, Benham saw Ren and Morgana tense up. _Do they know this guy?_

“Ah,” Akechi said. “Is that you, Ren? It’s good to see you.” There was a clear intensity to his words. Clearly, something had happened between him and Ren, and probably Morgana, too. That was reason enough to separate them then and there to bring akechi into an interrogation.

“Alright, team shadows, I give you permission to take the rest of the day off to get Anya sorted. Akechi, come with me to the station. I’d like you to answer a few questions for me.” Benham placed his hand on Akechi’s shoulder, and gave him an assertive look.

Not ten minutes later, Benham found himself staring Akechi down in the interrogation room. The first question to ask was obvious.

“What exactly happened between you and Anya last night?”

“Nothing much.” Akechi answered. “I got myself stuck in a nasty place, and Anya decided to fish me out. I got scared, and hurt her, and then she guided me to this town, where I could find some kind of refuge. That’s all.”

_You’re definitely leaving out a lot of important details, if not outright lying to me._ Benham thought. _Let’s see how you respond to a different question, and I’ll see if I can’t poke holes in that story._

“When I introduced you to Ren and Morgana, they seemed to recognize your name. Tell me, what exactly is your relation to them?”

“There was a little disagreement between us. I met them a long time ago, but the events are a little personal.”

“When and where was this?”

“It was about a year ago, in the land to the south.”

_Gotcha._ Benham thought. _Ren and Morgana came from the north, and claimed to be humans. It’s unlikely that they’ve been here for more than a year. Which means……_

“Really?” Benham asked. “Ren and Morgana came from the north. In fact, this is one of the most southern parts of the continent.”

Akechi looked shocked. “Well, I….”

“Ren and Morgana claim to be humans. Are you perhaps a human too?”

Akechi tensed up. “…You got me, I’m a human. And it was actually more like a month or two ago.”

“Then, what really happened with Anya?”

“I woke up, and she was looking down at me in the middle of a forest. I don’t really know how late it was, but I assume it was well after midnight? She helped me up, and then cut herself on my body. I suppose it was pretty far from here, so maybe that’s why it took so long to get back.”

“And you swear that that’s the whole truth?”

“I promise.” Akechi had a more dignified tone to his voice now. “There won’t be any more odd things about my story, I swear.”

“In that case…” Benham stood up. “You’re free to go. You had better not try picking a fight with Ren and Morgana, though. I don’t need a spat between you when there’s already so much going on in this place. Got it?”

“I understand. I won’t cause any more problems while I’m here.”

“All right. You are dismissed.”

With that, Akechi promptly left the room. At this moment, Benham had something else entirely on his mind. _There’s three whole humans being brought to the world? What could possibly be going on that could necessitate sending three, and not only that, why humans that not only knew each other, but had some bad blood between them? What could possibly be the reason for that? By all accounts, it doesn’t make sense…_ Benham headed back to his office, thoughts like these ringing in his head. It would be a long time before he finally got his answer.

* * *

Ren certainly was intrigued to hear what Akechi was doing with Anya, but to him, It was far more important to hear it from Akechi. To Ren, Akechi was the man who he hadn’t seen for nearly two years. If things were different, he probably could’ve been the greatest ally of the phantom thieves. And yet, Ren had to watch helplessly as Akechi gave up his life in order to bring Shido down. Surely, there was much to discuss. It was for this reason that he hadn’t asked Anya anything yet, and even told her directly that he wanted Akechi to be there to discuss it. What was no more than a half hour at that point seemed like an eternity. Finally, Akechi walked into their little hut.

“Long time no see,” Akechi responded with the same dignified intensity he always had. “How have you been keeping up?”

“Well enough,” Ren responded. “What happened last night?”

“Before I answer that question…” Akechi started. “…I’d like to know what happened after I was out inside of Shido’s palace. What exactly transpired in the past month or so?”

Ren paused. _He doesn’t realize that he actually died back there, does he?_ “Akechi… You were dead. Shido was dealt with almost two years ago at this point.”

Akechi looked shocked for a moment, but quickly regained his composure. “I don’t see how I could be alive then. Oh well. If Shido got what he deserved, I can’t exactly complain about it. I remember just waking up in the mountain after getting knocked out inside the ship.”

“Can you explain what happened in Babel, then?”

“Alright then. I woke up in… you called it Babel? I woke up inside Babel nearly two weeks ago. I didn’t really understand why I was there, but when I did, I very quickly learned that I was in quite the survival scenario. The shadows inside all left behind food when defeated, as well as a strange muck that seemed to restore my persona’s strength at a touch. As for the palace itself, it seemed to be some kind of analog to Mementos. It was absolutely enormous, as you probably saw if you took a quick look at it. I did some exploring on the outside, and when I tried to actually get much higher up the mountain, I was held back by winds stronger than anything I’d ever felt before. They sent me tumbling right back down. Intriguing, no?”

“It must really be like Mementos. The Mementos we knew also forbade travel to the lower layers until we got more notorious as the phantom thieves,” Morgana responded.

“That’s not the most interesting, part though,” Akechi continued. “What’s really interesting is who I met over the two weeks I was there. You see, about a week ago, when I was adventuring around as usual, gathering food, keeping my persona sharp, I ran into someone interesting. It wasn’t anyone I recognized from back home, and I’d wager a guess that if you saw them, you wouldn’t recognize them either. She was in this weird, almost medieval outfit, had a brown bonnet with yellow, not blonde, hair, and was wearing a matching sort skirt for some reason. She pulled a funny-looking musket on me, declaring me ‘witch scum’, and tied me up in red ribbons, prepared to shoot me dead then and there. Then, this little white rabbit thing comes in to stop her, saying he was ‘running an experiment’ and asked ribbon girl to ‘please wait a week for him to make preparations for the experiment’. For some reason, ribbon girl listened to the sketchiest furball I’d ever seen, and told me ‘I got off easy this time’. This all happened without me getting a word out without being aggressively cut off, by the way.”

“Experiment, huh? That must be the entity Igor warned about…” Ren said, not realizing he was speaking aloud.

“Igor?” Akechi asked. “Who’s that?”

“He’s a man responsible for dealing with persona users. He’s the one who brought me and Morgana here. He probably chose to bring you along as well.”

“I see… So this Igor character brought us here to fight furball’s gang, then?”

“That’s what he told us,” Morgana answered. “You haven’t met him, have you?”

“I haven’t. In any event, ribbon girl is probably fuming because I’m not in the metaverse right now. Which brings me nicely to the one who helped me escape. I found Anya as she fell right into unconsciousness after seemingly unlocking her persona.”

Ren turned to Anya. “You unlocked your persona? That’s incredible!”

Anya smiled. “Thanks, Ren.”

Akechi continued. “In any case, she took a long time to wake up. We left as soon as she woke up, and snuck out of town after she very briefly explained what kind of place this was exactly. We then doubled back to make it look like we had come out someplace nasty. I made it look like I had woken up in the real world after being summoned here. That should keep the Guildmaster off our tails for now.” Akechi sighed. “Which brings me nicely to Anya’s side of the story. Why don’t you tell them why you went into the metaverse alone?”

“Right,” Anya started. “I just thought I needed to face myself. I put off facing them for so long I… It was really hard.”

“You came out on the other side, though right?” Ren responded. “You’re a persona user now! You’ve earned it!”

“Ha-ha….” Anya seemed almost a little embarrassed at the praise. She then took on a more serious look. “Can I ask what exactly happened between you guys and Akechi? You don’t really seem like friends…”

Ren drew in a deep breath. “You see… Akechi was one of the people trying to go against the phantom thieves. He even tried to kill me… he did it because he wanted to get revenge on his father, Shido, and he was willing to use the metaverse for murder and stabbing everyone in the back just to get close to him so he could stab him in the back, too.” Ren turned to Akechi. “Even so, I don’t feel like you’re really that bad of a person. And I think that you want to be better, too. I want to move past our shared history, because you’re someone that I want be my friend. Will you join me?”

Akechi looked down. “I don’t particularly care about joining you. Quite frankly, I’d rather not be a member of the phantom thieves or a part of the guild. But, I suppose that if you want to bury the hatchet, then I could try making good by you, Ren.”

Ren smiled. After all of this time, he could finally at least talk to Akechi again.


	8. What's that keyword?

Ren was in a rather good mood today. Just yesterday, he’d finally seen Akechi again after two whole years, and got him to at least agree to be on better terms for the time being. He also learned that Anya had awakened her persona for the first time, too. He’d agreed to let Akechi train Anya a little bit, on the condition that he not attempt to use the metaverse for anything nefarious. During the day, he’d be leader of team shadows, and at night, he’d be training Anya to be a phantom thief. _Akechi said that he’ll need a few days out of the metaverse before jumping back in. We’ll start as soon as he’s ready._ Ren was even a little excited to be starting. It probably wasn’t going to be long before they found a proper target. _I can hardly wait…._

In the moment, Ren decided it was best to just do well in the guild for the day while he waited for Akechi to be ready. Without skipping a beat, he, Morgana, and Anya set off to do their guild work for the day. Ren purposefully chose a slightly higher workload for the day in order to channel his positive energy into the guild.

As Team shadows headed out of town for the day, Ren noticed that Anya seemed like she wanted to say something.

“Anya? Is something the matter?” He asked.

“You said that Akechi did a lot of terrible things when he was a human,” Anya started. “You said he murdered and betrayed people…. I just wanna know what it is that makes you think that he’s a good person at heart.”

Ren paused. Certainly, he’d been very forgiving of Akechi. Still, he didn’t think that Akechi was some kind of scumbag. “Akechi was someone who really seemed like he didn’t want to be doing the things that he was doing,” Ren responded. “He was someone who got trapped by his own convictions and circumstances, and he really just wanted to do the same thing the phantom thieves did. Correct for the injustices in the world. It’s just that the way that manifested led him down a dark path. I don’t think he was evil. I just think that he just found himself making the wrong decisions in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can understand that, since something similar led me to create the phantom thieves in the first place.”

“That reminds me… Why did you start the phantom thieves?”

“Well, one night, I was walking home from my school, and I saw a guy trying to force himself on a woman. I decided to intervene, the guy slipped and fell, got an injury, and I took the blame for ‘attacking’ him. I got sent somewhere else, stumbled into the metaverse with some guy I just met, and that’s where I met Morgana and learned about the metaverse. It all started from there, really.”

“Wow…” Anya paused. “Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing if you met Morgana, then.”

Ren laughed. “Maybe, Anya. Maybe.”

Morgana didn’t seem to like that answer. “Hey, what do you mean ‘Maybe’?”

At this point, Ren and Anya burst into laughter. After taking a moment to calm down, Team Shadows headed out to Amp plains to get their work done for the day. The Pokémon there proved to be tough, but they weren’t anything the trio couldn’t handle. After rescuing four very in-need Pokémon from the dungeon, Team Shadows headed back to the guild to get everything sorted.

“… And I’ll never know how to repay you, ever!” This particular client was feeling more than a little thankful for being saved than the average person.

“Relax, sir. We’re more than happy to help.” Ren was almost feeling a little embarrassed at this guy’s praise.

“Please, accept this reward! I am in your debt!”

After handing Ren the reward, the small Pokémon scuttled out of the guild, and Ren hoped that he wouldn’t need saving again. After handing Amity the guild’s share of the money, Ren, Morgana, and Anya left the guild building, and started heading back to their little hut for the day. They were in quite high spirits.

“Today was a good day, wouldn’t you guys agree?” Asked Morgana, with a cocksure look on his face. “We got quite a lot done!”

“Yeah! We’re doing great!” Anya agreed.

“But not for long!” Ren heard a raspy voice screech these words at him from behind. He turned around, and who else did he see but Chatot, who had a sinister grin on his face. He looked like he was about to get one up on them.

“What do you want, Chatot?” Ren asked, hoping to just be done with what he assumed was a speech about how he was ‘too cocky’, and ‘needed to be ready to fail’.

“Oh, nothing much… just preparing you and your friends for social doom.”

“…What’s your game, Chatot?” Ren was now significantly more on edge than he was previously, but still holding out hope that this was something that he could just ignore and move on.

“My ‘game’ is that I overheard a bit of your little conversation earlier. I heard you say it! That you are all thieves, and now you’re looking to get Anya, the daughter of Adrik, into your little scheme as well! Or, at least, that’s what I assume you said. I didn’t hear the last part. In any case, I know you’re plotting something.”

Morgana wasted no time in questioning Chatot. “How do you know that if you didn’t hear the whole conversation? For all you know, we were talking to Anya about her dad!”

Chatot gave a mocking laugh, and then responded. “Oh, _please._ There’s no need to bluff like that, Morgana. I not only heard Ren say ‘the phantom thieves’, but I also overheard what you said about that Akechi fellow, too. Nasty things, like murder and betrayal. If I went to the police with this information, how quick do you think he’d be to expose you? Harboring someone so dangerous, trying to even forge a friendship with him… officer Magnezone is rather smart, and rather quick to isolate dangerous individuals, you know. It’d be very quick for him to get you all behind bars… don’t you think?”

“So that’s what you’re trying to blackmail us? Is that it?” Ren asked.

“ _Blackmail?”_ Chatot asked, with a mocking disbelief. “I’ll have you know that I am above such things! Besides, to blackmail you would be to waste this golden opportunity! Once I expose you, I’ll be hailed as a hero! Everyone will bow before me! I’ll be hailed as the hero that expelled the nasty phantom thieves from treasure town! And then, I’ll finally have all of the power and influence at the guild that I desire! I may even finally take my rightful place on the throne as Guildmaster! So… It’s already decided. I’ll report you to officer Magnezone in a fortnight! Why don’t you try to prove your innocence before then, if it even exists? We’ll make a game of it!”

“Chatot!” Ren called out. “Don’t you dare!”

“Oh, is that a threat? Not helping your case, Ren Zorua. Well then, I’ll be off! See you in a fortnight!” Chatot strolled back into the guild, with a smug look on his face. Clearly, he thought that he was untouchable. _You’ve got no idea who you’re messing with, Edmont Chatot. We’re the phantom thieves, and you’ve just made yourself the perfect target! All I need to do now is find you’re keywords, and your heart is as good as stolen!_

Beside him, Anya looked very nervous. “Sh-shouldn’t we…”

“No, Anya,” Ren responded. “This is perfect. He’s got no idea what we’ve got in store for him. We’ll deal with him.”

* * *

The following evening, Benham found himself in the main area of treasure town, with the guild following him. That night, all of treasure town was in celebration. Tonight was a night that had become a very special night since Benham first arrived in town. It was the anniversary of his very own world-saving quest. Ever since he’d stopped the planet from being paralyzed, he’d been hailed as a hero. Even before Guildmaster Wigglytuff passed, he’d been able to use his status as a hero to improve the town, and transform it from a small little town into a bustling center of population. He’d basically built most of the town’s infrastructure from the ground up. His reputation was so good that nobody ever questioned why he was the new Guildmaster and not Chatot. To the Pokémon in the town, there was never any question that he’d make a great Guildmaster. As such, nearly 15 summers ago, the late Wigglytuff had dedicated a feast in Benham’s honor while he was still alive. Today, they were once again gathered to celebrate. Benham turned to face the guild and everyone else in attendance, who seemed to be awaiting him with bated breath.

“Good evening, everyone! Thank you for coming!” Benham was always felt a little bad about being the center of attention like this, but he needed to give a speech, so he would. “As you know, this night marks a whopping twenty years since I came here, and undid the planet’s paralysis! I’m eternally grateful for your continued support, and hope to continue making this town a better place for everyone! It’s been an incredible 20 years working with you all, and I really am excited to continue working as Guildmaster, and making this town the best it can ever be! Without further ado… let the feast commence!”

It didn’t take long for everyone to scatter around the huge buffet that had been set up in the middle of town. Everyone was caught up in the festivities, and all conducting bubbly little conversations with eachother. _Alright._ Benham thought. _It’s time to do a little testing with keywords._ Benham walked around the square with Amity, enjoying all the festivities, looking to start a conversation. It didn’t take long for someone to try talking to him.

“Guildmaster!” Keckleon approached Benham, drink in hand. “How’s your week going?”

“Good as ever, Keckleon.” Benham placed his hand on Keckleon’s shoulder. “With everyone _screaming_ about how well things have gone, it’s quite hard to feel bad about it!”

“Great to hear, you!” Keckleon walked off, clearly a little tipsy.

Benham waited for a moment, and…. Nothing. _Oh well. Onto the next attempt._ And he did. He went around the town, striking up all kinds of conversations about his exploits, his plans for the town, enjoying all the festivities, and at the same time, covertly attempting to activate the dimensional scream with keywords. He tried all kinds of words, like ‘yell’, ‘future’, ‘time’, ‘dimensions’, ‘visions’, and the list went on and on. Nothing worked. No matter what he did, the dimensional scream never seemed to activate. The more Benham pressed on, the more like he felt like he was grasping at straws. _Is the dimensional scream really gone altogether? That would be really bad…_ As he continued around town, he stumbled into a conversation between chatot and Team Shadows. They seemed to be a little passive-aggressive towards each other, but were otherwise civil.

“And what would make you such a great Guildmaster, Chatot?” Benham overheard Morgana say.

“Why, that’s obvious! I hold onto Guildmaster Wigglytuff’s dream the best! That Benham doesn’t have the foggiest idea what he’s talking about! He-“

Benham decided to cut him off. “And what exactly are we talking about here?”

Chatot jumped, and suddenly whipped around to face Benham, and gave a disdainful look. “I’ve got nothing to say to you, Benham! I’m leaving!” Chatot tried to storm off, but Benham stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Chatot,” Benham started. “I know how you feel about everything that’s been going on in this town since _he_ departed. But you’ve got to _see_ that arguing about it now isn’t going to lead to anything productive. You’re just burning bridges, and I think you’re a little too old to be doing that.”

Chatot shook off Benham’s hand, with his feathers thoroughly ruffled. He then stormed off in the direction of the guild without saying a word. _Chatot, I don’t want to be your enemy…. Can you just let it go?_ Benham thought. With a sigh, he turned to Team Shadows, who were just standing there awkwardly watching the previous exchange. “So. How are you three doing tonight?” He asked.

“Good as ever, Guildmaster,” Ren responded. “Guildwork’s been going well. How about you?”

“Excellent, excellent… Did you ever get the dimensional scream to activate?”

“Nothing yet, I’m afraid…” Ren paused, like he was contemplating something. “If you don’t mind me asking…what’s Chatot’s deal? It seems like he hates you.”

Benham sighed. “I just think that he’s jealous. Ever since I started gaining more power and influence in the years following what Amity and I did to save the world, it’s like he was afraid of me. I think me becoming Guildmaster instead of him made him really bitter, like something was stolen from him. He probably views my actions as disrespect towards the old Guildmaster’s legacy.”

“So he had a lot of respect for the old Guildmaster, and he feels like he deserved a spot as Guildmaster for himself?” Anya asked. “When you put it that way, he sounds kind of greedy…”

“It was more than just greed, I’m afraid,” Amity interjected, looking like she was starved to participate in the discussion. “He was really close to the old Guildmaster. He frequently hung around his quarters, had discussions with him… He must have felt a certain betrayal when Wigglytuff chose Benham as the next Guildmaster instead of him on his deathbed. Plus, Chatot had always exercised his position as apprentice to the Guildmaster to have power within the guild itself. He certainly didn’t like losing all of that power overnight. To him, I bet it felt like he was losing something that he deserved.”

“So is that why he talks about being Guildmaster? As a way of trying to get back the power that he used to have?” Ren asked.

“In all likelihood, yes,” Benham responded. “I don’t doubt that he’s looking for an excuse to call my position as Guildmaster into question. It’s such a shame, too. He was once among the most respected members of the guild, but now he’s hurt his relationships with many of the guild members. His ego got the better of him, it seems. I doubt he’ll change anytime soon.”

“That is a shame…” Ren agreed. Benham noticed that there was an odd confidence to his voice.

“It is. Well, I’ve got nearly the rest of the town to talk to, so I’ll be seeing you. Have a good night and enjoy the festival.”

“You too, Guildmaster!”

As he walked off, Benham got back into the same routine as earlier. Even so, nothing seemed to be working. As the festivities started to wrap up for the night, he prepared to watch the the fireworks show with Amity.

“Well? Did you see anything?” Amity asked. She seemed worried.

“Nothing. This time I tried 47 separate times to activate the dimensional scream using keywords, and nothing showed up. It’s starting to look bleak.”

“Relax, Benham,” Amity reassured him. “You’ll figure this out eventually, right? Maybe Ren does have it, and you’re stressing over nothing. Come on, it’s festival night. Relax a little.”

“Well, with Akechi showing up, I’m starting to doubt that theory. If the dimensional scream was going to transfer to a new human, why send three humans, and send them staggered apart like that?”

“Look. Benham. Even if it’s gone forever, that doesn’t make you a bad leader. You’ll do fine without it.”

Benham sighed. “Thank you, Amity.” Benham looked up, and as fireworks lit up the sky, he started to wonder if he’d be able to stop whatever disaster was headed his way.

* * *

After a few days of subtly asking questions about Chatot, Ren was starting to feel like he could make a few guesses at his keywords. Ren had already confirmed that he had a palace the night Chatot confronted the three of them, but with Akechi finally feeling up to exploring the metaverse, now seemed like the appropriate time to strike. _He’s always distrusted Guildmaster Raichu, and his treatment of the guild worsened after Raichu became Guildmaster… He also seeks to become Guildmaster himself… What does that say about him?_ His contemplation was cut short by Akechi coming through the door.

“I understand you found yourself a target?” Akechi asked.

“Sure have,” Morgana responded. “And he’s threatening to expose us ten days from now if we don’t do anything about it. Edmont Chatot’s his name.”

“Alright then.” Akechi sat down at the table in the middle of the hut. “I know I said I wasn’t going to join the phantom thieves, but I suppose I can help you out to start off. Did you do some digging into him? Figure out any keywords?”

“We only confirmed that he had a palace and asked around about him. We decided to wait until you were here to make guesses at the keywords,” Ren said. “Basically, he’s really spiteful towards the current Guildmaster, and those feelings worsened when the old one passed the title onto Benham. He’s even said that he deserves the role himself.”

“Well then,” Akechi said. “I think that makes it a little obvious what the location is. Shall we try it?”

Anya nodded, and took out the meta-nav. She first scribbled ‘Edmont Chatot’, which stayed on the tablet when she wrote it down. Next, she wrote down ‘Wigglytuff’s Guild’, and that also stuck around. “It’s not disappearing. Looks like the guild is where the palace is, so that just leaves what his distortion is.”

“It’s no surprise that the Guild is the location,” Ren said. “Given how much of his history is tied to it.”

“You said that he desired to be Guildmaster?” Akechi questioned. “What about… Tribe?”

Anya tried writing ‘tribe’ down on the meta-nav, but it failed to work. Instead, all three words simply disappeared from the tablet. “No dice,” Anya said. “Anything else?”

Morgana piped up. “What about ‘business’? Maybe he sees himself as a boss or something. It’d make some sense, given how he acts.”

Again, Anya wrote down ‘Edmont Chatot’ and ‘Wigglytuff’s Guild’ on the meta-nav, which stayed like before. She then wrote down ‘business’, but to her dismay, it disappeared off the tablet, as did the correct keywords. “That one didn’t work either. Any other guesses?”

Ren began thinking deeply about Chatot. He knew that it had something to do with the idea of being deserving of a leader, he just wasn’t sure what. As he thought about it, he was reminded of the night Chatot confronted the three of them. ‘ _And then, I’ll finally have all of the power and influence at the guild that I desire! I may even finally take my rightful place on the throne as Guildmaster!’ ….Throne? Like a king’s throne? And wasn’t that something Anya said sticks around for while? Maybe…._ Ren spoke. “Anya, try ‘castle’!”

“Is a castle even something that exists in this world?” Akechi wondered aloud.

“It is,” Anya responded. “We do have actual kings elsewhere in the world.” After saying this, Anya quickly re-wrote the previous two keywords, and then added ‘castle’ at the end. Once she did, all three words started glowing crimson, and the words ‘Beginning Navigation’ flashed across the top once more.

Ren smiled. “All right, everyone! It’s showtime! Let’s get this palace done!”

As he said this, he was overcome by a very familiar feeling. He felt like the world around him was melting away, and that he was somehow transforming into something else. He was traveling to the metaverse, and now, a brand new palace awaited him. Before long, reality seemed to fade back into place, and Ren had assumed his true form yet again. He looked around, and saw Morgana and Akechi by his side, as well as Anya, who had a puzzled look on her face. “Something the matter?” He asked her.

“N-no, it’s just that… didn’t you and Akechi look different last time?” She asked.

“Oh, this? It’s probably because we haven’t really shown ourselves as a threat to the palace ruler. You see, we don’t actually fully transform into our phantom thief getup until the palace ruler’s cognition deems us a threat. It’d be odd if we were transformed already, since the real Chatot thinks he has us beaten already.”

“I see… so are we going to transform when the shadow sees us?”

“It might take less than that for us to transform, actually,” Akechi interjected. “Even entering the palace proper could trigger the transformation, even if we don’t get discovered. After that, we’ll be transformed the next time we enter.”

“Oh…” Anya seemed a little lost.

“Don’t worry about it, Anya. We’ll explain things as we go.” Ren reassured her.

Looking at his surroundings more closely now, Ren saw that he was in a bushy area nearby what he could only assume was the beach outside of treasure town. As he looked up to where Sharpedo bluff was supposed to be, he saw a thick cobblestone walls stretching all over the cliffside and around the nearby forest, which was where the huts would normally be. _Chatot must view treasure town as an extension of the guild at large. This is going to be harder to penetrate then I thought._ Looking over at the forested section, he saw a number of windows, as well as two guard shadows stationed at a gate in the front. _Better sneak in through one of these windows…_ Using the forest as cover, he snuck up to one of the windows without being noticed, and Anya, Morgana, and Akechi closely followed. He gently opened it, and squeezed his way through, and helped the others through. Not once second after all four of them were inside, they transformed into their Phantom thief getup. Ren looked to Anya, and he saw her in what looked like a black runner’s outfit, with some decorative wings on the back, as well as goggles that were tinted red. “It looks good. I like it!”

“…Thanks,” Anya responded, clearly a little embarrassed at the praise.

Ren then turned to Akechi, and was a little surprised. He was in his black mask outfit, not the robin hood outfit that he wore when he first pretended to be a member of the phantom thieves. This piqued Ren’s interest quite a bit. “Wearing that one?” He asked.

“Well, I’ve got nothing more to hide from you, haven’t I? What would even be the point of wearing that facade, Joker?”

“I see… Oh, right! We need a code name for you!” Ren said, now turning to Anya. “We can’t go using our real names while we’re in the palace. I call myself Joker.”

“Mona.”

“Crow.”

“Codename? Uh…..” Anya was silent for a quite a while, deliberating over what codename she wanted. Eventually, she gave her answer. “How about Runner?”

Joker laughed. “That’s a little ironic, isn’t it?”

“Oh! I….” ‘Runner’ suddenly seemed embarrassed over the codename she picked.

“Relax, you’re fine,” Mona said, with a grandiose tone of voice. “Runner it is!”

“Alright, Runner,” Joker started. “Time to explore the palace!”


	9. Importance of self

Looking at the environment he was in, Ren could tell that Chatot’s palace wasn’t exactly interconnected. Beyond the wall he had just entered into, there were 3 more, each one guarded by a set of shadows, with other shadows crawling everywhere in between. Ren spotted several different locations for cover, but passing right through all of them would be tricky without getting caught. The shadows, as usual, needed to be taken out quietly. He mentally prepared himself for what would surely be a journey to the next safe room. _The real issue here,_ Ren thought, _is managing this palace and the guildwork at the same time…_

“Well?” Anya asked. “Where to first?”

Ren pointed to a small piece of cover just ahead. “Let’s try sneaking over there…”

Ren quietly snuck over to the piece of cover, careful to not be seen by the nearby shadows, and crouched down. Akechi, Anya, and Morgana quickly followed suit, taking note of how Ren was moving with respect to the shadows. Ren repeated this process, sneaking around what he could only assume was the huts. The shadows were getting a little too close for comfort, and Ren thought it best to try ambushing one, just to be safe. He peered around the corner, and saw a lone shadow in front of an empty hut. This one was perfect. The other shadows probably wouldn’t see if they ambushed this one. He motioned to the others, and they all tensed up, seemingly craving this moment. With a swift leap, he rounded the corner, and leaped atop the shadow, ripping off it’s mask to reveal it’s true form. The other three swiftly followed up, surrounding the shadow, as it morphed into a Pyro Jack, and prepared to attack the cornered shadow. Ren wasted no time hitting it with a powerful _Eigaon_ courtesy of Arsene, and to his surprise, it was Anya that followed up with a devastating _Panta Rhei_ from what Ren could only assume was her own persona. The shadow didn’t take such a devastating attack very well at all, and crumpled into nothing almost instantly. Ren turned to Anya. “So your persona can use wind skills, huh?” He asked her, sure to keep his voice down.

“Oh, that’s what that was? I just did what felt natural…” She responded timidly.

“Then you’re doing it right,” Morgana asserted. “Your persona is a manifestation of your will. Doing what feels natural is what fighting with a persona’s all about!”

“Still, she needs practice…” Akechi interjected.

Ren looked around. Just as he’d hoped, not a single shadow had seen what happened just now. _That’s a relief…_ This sense of ease led Ren to meditate on the shadows he’d seen a little further. The shadows had the appearance of spies and soldiers at the same time. They weren’t quite either, but the qualities of both were very apparent on them. _Does Chatot see the people of the town as belonging to his rule? His personal soldiers?_ Ren looked around at what he could see of the huts from the little piece of cover he’d claimed from the Pyro Jack. Now that he looked at them a little more closely, they more closely resembled barracks like you might find in a camp or something, and less like the huts that they were in reality. _Maybe it’s the other way around. The only people that matter are those in the guild, and everyone else may as well not exist. He was around when Treasure town was much smaller, wasn’t he? It might have been more true back then than it is right now… his way of thinking hasn’t evolved much past that point._

Ren turned to the barrack he was taking cover behind. He noticed that it seemed weirdly out-of-focus compared to the surrounding area. It almost seemed to shimmer a little, as if it was barely holding onto it’s place in the world around it. At once, Ren realized what he was looking at.

“Guys,” He said as he motioned to the hut. “It’s a safe room.”

He wasted no time in opening the door inside. Having access to a safe room would make this part of the palace much quicker to traverse past, so getting inside was a must. Once inside, he noted the part of the real world that this place must clearly belong to. The hut seemed to be one that was very recently built, as there was nothing inside hat would indicate that someone was currently living in it. As it shimmered back and forth between the real world counterpart and the space in the metaverse, he noted that the metaverse replaced the nondescript table and beds in the room with ones that implied a more traditional aesthetic. The room in the metaverse had orderly bags of explorer’s equipment right next to the beds, which transformed from the pet-like beds of before into these little piles of straw about the same size. The table in the middle was suddenly covered in job requests. _Clearly, this is what Chatot thinks a proper explorer team looks like._ His quiet observation of the room around him was interrupted by an Anya who seemed very confused by this whole ordeal.

“Uh, Ren?” She asked. “What exactly is this place? It’s so… weird. Even for the metaverse…”

“This is a safe room. Essentially, it’s a place in the palace that the place ruler’s own distortions don’t have a very strong impact on. We can rest up in here, and shadows won’t attack us so long as we’re inside, hence the name.”

“I see.” Anya paused. “Aren’t we kind of in a hurry? Why are we waiting in a place like this, then?”

“Mere shelter isn’t the only thing a safe room offers,” Akechi stated. “It also serves as a point of entry for the metaverse. Next time we come in, we could start here instead of having to sneak our way in again. It will make our future ventures into the palace much easier.”

Anya was right that they shouldn’t procrastinate too much, though. They were on a strict timer, so dilly-dallying around would come back to bite them if they hesitated too much. “Shall we head out?” He inquired. “We’d better get a move on.”

With that, the Phantom Thieves exited the safe room, and got a move on outside. Just around the hut where the safe room was, Ren realized that they had gotten very close to the next gate. Ren sized up the two shadows guarding it. He quickly observed that choosing to fight their way through this gate would be possible, but they’d have to leave as soon as it opened. There was no way that they could handle the resulting deluge of shadows that would follow them busting down the gate violently. He looked around the surrounding area for any alternative methods of entry, but didn’t see anything. The wall scaled up high, well beyond the cover they were in, and there were shadows at the top, ready to punish any would-be invaders. They were in a blind spot now, but one wrong move, and they’d be spotted anyway. It seemed that combat into flight was the only real option that they had. _Alright, we got this. Just bust down the door, and leave._ Ren motioned to the other three, and then pointed at the door.

“We’re going to bust our way through?” Anya questioned. “Isn’t that a little risky?”

“It’s our only option. We won’t be able to scale these walls easily without getting spotted.” Ren answered. “You ready?”

“Ready for anything, Joker!” Morgana seemed excited at the prospect of getting some serious licks in, since he got snubbed away from fighting the last shadow.

Ren turned towards the gate, and readied himself for a gigantic encounter. Sneaking into position just behind the guard shadows, Ren leaped into the open, ripped their masks, and summoned Arsene, and unleased a massive _Maeigaon_ , not on the shadows themselves, but on the area surrounding the gate. A massive wall of cursed flames towered behind him, and streaked over the guard wall, creating a temporary barrier between the two shadows at the gate, and all of the other shadows that would no doubt be descending on the phantom thieves shortly. The wall guarding the inner palace itself, however, remained relatively firm, even as the forsaken fire roared. It didn’t take long for Morgana, Anya, and Akechi to jump into the fray, prepared to face the two shadows at the gate. Both shadows transformed into Eligors, and immediately attempted to retaliate with a _Maragi_ and a _Memory Blow,_ but these attacks were shrugged off by the Phantom thieves. Akechi struck right back with a brutal _Megidola,_ which seemed to seriously damage both shadows. Morgana quickly followed up with a _Miracle Rush_ , knocking both shadows to the ground in the process. Instead of finishing off the shadows now, Ren let his teammates continue fighting while he focused on getting the door itself. After fueling the haunting flames with yet another _Maeigaon_ , he called out to the others, saying “I’m gonna try getting the door down!”, and ran right up to the door. Looking it over, he discovered that it moved at the slightest touch, despite it’s imposing appearance. _Really?_ He thought. _That seems weak. One good blow to the lock, and it’ll fly right open._ Ren backed up a bit, and unleashed a _Riot Gun_ on the door. Without much of a fight, the singular lock shattered, and the door itself flew open so violently that it came clean off the hinges. Ren was almost alarmed by how well it went, but he wasn’t going to complain about it. Without a second thought, he ran back towards the shadows, just as Anya slammed one of them with another devastating _Panta Rhei_. The shadow crumpled instantly, just in time for Akechi to land a clean _Hamaon_ on the other, just because he could. Now that both shadows were defeated and the door was blown wide open, it was time to get the hell out of there. As Ren watched the eerie flames die down, He turned to his teammates. “Everyone!” Ren called out. “Let’s get out of here!”

Anya wasted no time in whipping out the meta-nav, but before she could use it to warp everyone out, it was suddenly struck out of her hands by a lone shadow that had just barely managed to get through the fire. She was pinned down, and the nav fell down on the floor. Ren, Akechi, and Morgana tried to reach for it, but they were quickly surrounded by the sudden storm of shadows that came barreling through the now much weaker flames. The shadows held the phantom thieves at spearpoint in order to stop them from moving very much at all. Suddenly, Ren heard a shrill voice that wasn’t quite the same as the last time he heard it.

“And what mess is going on here, I wonder?”

Ren looked to where the voice was coming from. Right there, standing in the now-destroyed door, was Chatot’s shadow. The bird was wearing clothing that resembled a knight somehow, and gave off a regal appearance. However, it didn’t seem like something a kind would wear. This bothered Ren in the moment. _He doesn’t see himself as the king? If not him, then who?_

Chatot’s shadow surveyed the phantom thieves and looked at them menacingly. “Thieves? In the castle? Why, this won’t do at all! If I am to rule, then these miscreants must be dealt with!”

“What’s your deal, huh?” Morgana interrupted, seemingly stalling for time.

One of the shadows holding them at spearpoint spoke up.

“You are in the presence of Chatot, the successor to the throne! You had better behave, lest you find yourselves executed!” It boomed, talking so loudly that Ren thought his ears might burst open.

“I am more than the mere successor to the throne, servant!” Chatot’s shadow piped up, apparently not satisfied with how the guard shadow was describing him. “I am the true noble, the one who will stamp out the filth that is allowed to run amok in this place! I shall redeem it from the dark course that usurper of a Raichu has sought to steer it down! And this arrest shall be part of that correction!”

“Of course, sir…” The guard shadow agreed with a pathological humility.

Ren started to brainstorm ways out of the mess he had found himself in. _The spears are probably gonna come for my throat if I reach for my mask to use another persona skill again, or if I try anything else funny. The meta-nav is just out of reach…_ He looked at Anya, who seemed to be a little dazed from getting knocked down like that. _She’s got an arm free. If she could just summon her persona, she might be able to reach the meta-nav and get us out of here, as planned…_ Without saying a word, Ren attempted to get Anya’s attention without arousing suspicion. He looked her directly in the eyes, and then at the tablet. He repeated this process, until she seemingly realized what he was suggesting. Anya shifted her arm a little so that her hand was just barely next to her head, and extremely quickly ripped off her mask, summoning her persona. Before the gaurds could react, she cast _Sukukaja_ , giving herself a sudden burst of speed. In a flash, she dashed over to the meta-nav, just barely managing to slip through, and reached the meta-nav, activating it as soon as she touched it. Ren saw the spears begin to come down on him, but before they could reach him, Ren saw them melt away around him, a sign that he was leaving the metaverse. Now back inside the hut, Ren breathed a sigh of relief.

“Rough night, huh guys?” He asked, trying to lighten the mood after such a close brush with death.

* * *

Sitting down in his office, Benham was hardly in a good mood. After almost a week of trying all kinds of potential activation requirements for the dimensional scream, nothing seemed to be working. He’d exhausted every kind of keyword, arranged multiple scenarios, asked all kinds of excruciatingly carefully worded questions, and not once did the dimensional scream ever trigger. He was left with a sinking feeling that he’d essentially wasted all of that time, that he’d allowed himself to be overtaken by wild speculation. Now, it was seemingly time to face the music. His dimensional scream was gone, and he had absolutely nothing to show for it. It was all for nothing. As he ruminated to himself on the issue, Amity noticed his dour mood.

“What’s wrong, Benham?” Amity asked, giving him an opportunity to vent his frustrations.

“I’ve wasted the past week on a wild goose chase. No matter what I do, I can’t activate the dimensional scream. Was it all for nothing?”

“Come on, Benham. Cheer up! You’re more than capable enough to work without it!”

Benham sighed and looked up at the ceiling. That was probably true, but he could help but feel like he’d lost something vital. The dimensional scream had allowed him to make the best of situations where he was all but lost and make connections nobody else could. To an extent, he felt pressured to do much better than he usually could just to keep up with his track record. The dimensional scream was what let him operate with an efficiency that nobody else could. Now it was gone. Benham couldn’t help but wonder. _I’m sure that Ren arriving in town and me losing access to the dimensional scream are connected. But how? Is it connected to the unusually high number of humans? But how? Did whoever it was that sent the humans deactivate the dimensional scream? Does such a being even exist?_ He took a deep breath. _…Stop, Benham. Wild speculation is getting you nowhere. What you need to focus on is being a better guildmaster than before in order to deal with the problems in treasure town and the grass continent at large. In order to do that, you can’t let yourself be distracted by things like this._ He looked back over at Amity. “It’s time to accept that I need to learn how to work without the dimensional scream. You’re right. Worrying is getting me nowhere fast. I need to use my wits.”

“That’s the spirit!” Amity smiled. She seemed happy to see Benham recognize his real strength rather than worry about relying on the dimensional scream. “Now let’s-“

Amity had her little pep talk cut short by a certain someone barging into the room. Chatot knocked the doors to the office open like he practically owned the place, marched over to Benham, and brandished a letter. He spoke in a manner that implied that he just wanted to get it over with. “It’s for you! A letter from the king of High Town!” Chatot marched right back out of the room after properly shoving tiny scroll into Benham’s hands.

“A letter? From the king of High Town?” Benham managed to get out before Chatot closed the doors behind him. Benham was a little offended that Chatot didn’t even attempt to explain the letter he’d just handed to Benham. After all, a letter from the king of High Town was a pretty big deal. Just ten summers ago, Wigglytuff’s guild had made contact with a settlement on nearly the opposite side of the grass continent that had only been rumored about for decades. The Pokémon there had a highly foreign culture to those in Treasure Town. They put all of their energy into defending the settlement itself and almost never ventured off the little peninsula they settled on. They had no guild, or any kind of rescue system. Only a group that dealt with catching and punishing criminals within the settlement itself. No, everything in the town was overseen by King Diego Dragonite, and to a lesser extent his small circle of advisers. He was apparently the latest in a 400-summer dynasty of rulers that had governed the town ever since it’s inception, and he thought extremely highly of himself and the town he ruled. When the late Guildmaster Wigglytuff first met Diego, in fact, the late Guildmaster’s carefree attitude and tendency to act impulsively had put off the ruler so much that the initial relations between the two towns were quite bitter. In recent years, and unfortunately, especially after Wigglytuff’s death, relations had improved substantially. The last time they had made contact was at a summit in Shaymin village just two moons ago, where King Dragonite had finally agreed to allow Wigglytuff’s guild to manage rescue missions for his subjects. This had marked a massive turning point in good relations with High town, so Benham was hoping this letter was a further offer to expand their partnership. Benham opened the letter with some not-undue optimism. He began to read it out loud.

“Dear Guildmaster Benham Raichu of Treasure Town, I hope this letter finds you well. If you recall, at the summit where I agreed to allow your men to perform rescues for my subjects, we also touched on a small handful of other topics that I was seeking knowledge on. Among these topics of discussion was the topic of humans, creatures that are rarely sent from another world to this one to help deal with massive incidents that cause great strife on a great scale. As if on cue, two individuals that claimed to be humans suddenly appeared in the middle of my great town just a week ago, as of the time of writing this. These individuals have caused quite a stir here, so I request your assistance in dealing with this matter. I request that you or your right hand, accompanied by a number of your men, come meet these humans in person to help sort through these troubles. Signed, King Diego Dragonite of High Town.”

Amity’s face lit up in shock. “More humans?! They’re popping up like pox! This is crazy!”

Benham was very surprised himself. “This is unprecedented… that’s 5 humans in total, now! Something is amiss here… How many are out there? 8? 10? More than that? Are these humans also acquaintances of Ren and Morgana, or was Akechi’s arrival mere coincidence?” Benham paused for a moment to think. “This goes without saying, but we’re organizing an expedition to High Town. We’ll have some of our best teams make the journey, as well as team shadows to meet with the humans on the off chance that they happen to know these humans, too. We’ll announce this tomorrow, and spend the next few days picking the other teams that will accompany them. After that, we’ll announce the teams that are going, and leave the day after. It’ll be our first proper expedition in a little under a summer, so I’m sure the guild will be happy to stretch it’s legs a little.”

“You said it, Benham! Let’s get going!” Amity seemed especially pumped to do a proper expedition herself, even if it was for diplomatic purposes. This would be very important for finding out what exactly was going on in the world, as well. If Benham had a chance to interrogate the two humans, then it might actually give some insight into why they were summoned here in the first place. Once he had the intel he needed, he could properly prepare the guild for the oncoming disaster. _These humans will be the key to planning for the future,_ Benham thought to himself. _And I’m not letting the future be one where this world suffers._


	10. Hindsight is 20/20

After last night’s palace exploration, Ren was feeling a little tired. Still, getting up and doing his guildwork properly was essential to maintaining his cover as a member of the guild. He needed to make sure that he was not only a good phantom thief, but also a good explorer. That meant doing serious guildwork. As Team Shadows walked up to the guild to start their day, Ren noticed that Anya was looking around, as if she didn’t want anybody seeing what she was doing. Finally, she turned to Ren and kept her voice down as she spoke.

“Hey, Ren? Can I ask you something?” She asked.

“Alright, shoot,” Ren responded.

“How are we going to manage if we keep going to the metaverse every night? Isn’t it going to be obvious that we’re up to something if we constantly look exhausted?”

“It’s not like we’ll be doing this forever. We’re only going until we manage to steal Chatot’s heart. That’s going to take a week, at most. After that, we’ll only enter the metaverse if we feel like it until we find another target. Besides, while we can’t get away with doing minimal work every day, that only means that we have to take two or three jobs a day. That should be enough to keep up appearances. Besides, it’s not like we’re the only ones who seem like they’re tired.”

This response seemed to satisfy Anya briefly, who looked down, and seemed to ponder on it for a moment, then asked a follow-up question. “And why would we need to enter the metaverse except to steal a heart?”

“Most likely, to explore Babel,” Morgana responded. “A palace that big merits exploring. Plus, there’s what Akechi said about the other person he met in Babel. That woman was probably one of the enemy persona users we’re supposed to be fighting. Worth looking into…”

“Indeed,” Ren agreed. “But we can’t really let ourselves be distracted by that right now. We need to deal with the immediate threat in front of us.”

Morgana and Anya nodded in agreement. Ren started looking around, and it didn’t seem like anyone was in earshot of what he’d just said. “From now on, I think it’s best if we have these conversations while alone in dungeons, or in the hut. We don’t need another Chatot on our hands…”

As he said this, he made his way into Wigglytuff’s Guild. Nobody had heard him, but right now was the best time to stop talking. Making the way into the mess hall, eating, and then returning to the main hall for the morning briefing, Ren didn’t expect very much at all to change today, but in that respect, he was wrong.

“I have a very important announcement to make for the day!” Benham announced.

Instantly, there was some mild chatter amongst the guild members, as these types of announcements didn’t come regularly. Benham seemed to wait a little for everyone to calm down before continuing, seemingly knowing how the guild would react. He then continued to speak.

“I would like to announce our guild’s first major expedition in nearly a whole summer!” He yelled with a smile.

Instantly, the whole guild erupted into cheers. The whole guild was extremely happy to hear this news, even the usual grouches like Chatot and Loudred. Benham did his best to calm down the guild before continuing on with the speech.

“Now then, this time we’re headed all the way to High Town peninsula to aid in exploring the surrounding area. In addition, King Diego of High town has requested that we also aid in dealing with two new humans that recently appeared there!”

This triggered another wave of whisperings among the crowd. So far, Ren and Morgana’s status as humans had been known only to Benham and Amity, so as far as the rest of treasure town knew, Benham was the last confirmed human to appear anywhere in the world. Ren heard all kinds of wild speculation from the guildmembers around him.

“Two humans? In High Town?”

“They’re here to deal with some nasty mess, yup yup!”

“I bet they’re making themselves out to be heroes already!”

“Maybe they’re already saving the world!”

Ren almost felt embarrassed to hear the guild speak so highly of humans. Maybe it came from how successful Benham was, or maybe it was the mysticism surrounding humans, but they seemed to think that all humans were destined to be noble heroes who stopped the bad guys and saved the day, like some kind of manga protagonist. Then again, he’d done his fair share of world saving as a phantom thief, so perhaps it wasn’t unwarranted.

Benham continued on with his little speech. “Now then, we leave in a little over a week from now. We’ll be taking about half of the guild’s teams, so until we announce which teams are going in a few days, I’d like everyone to try their hardest around the guild! That is all!”

Immediately after, Ren felt like enormous pressure had been placed upon him. Before, He thought that he could just get away with adequate guildwork while they were attempting to steal Chatot’s heart, but now, it looked like they’d have to try harder than ever. He knew that these humans could either be members of the phantom thieves or part of the band of humans he was supposed to be fighting, so not going on the expedition wasn’t an option. Ren wondered if he could truly manage a workload that bad, but he had to try. That day, he decided to take a whopping 6 jobs in one day from the job boards. Team shadows worked very hard on those 6 jobs, and they felt drained at the end of it all. They persevered through, and it became apparent that this had taken a bit of a toll on their resources as well. This seriously worried Ren. _We still need to do our metaverse exploration tonight. This is going to be extremely exhausting! Can we really keep up with all of this nonsense?_ As he left the guild for the night to enter into what would be, in all likelihood, a life-threatening situation in Chatot’s palace, Anya turned to Ren, this time failing to keep her voice down.

“Hey Ren? What was that you said this morning about doing 2-3 jobs a day? Isn’t this going to be really hard?”

Ren looked back at Anya, but before he could talk about things he really didn’t want anyone else hearing, he was interrupted by Amity, who had snuck up on him.

“You three can rest easy. You guys are already going on the expedition.”

Ren whipped around. _That was close!_ He thought. _If I mentioned the phantom thieves just now, Amity would have reported me to Benham! I can’t believe I almost made a mistake like that! Stop, Ren. Don’t act suspicious now. Just calm down…_ “We’re already going?” He asked Amity.

“Indeed you are. In fact, you don’t really have a say in this. The Guildmaster suspects that since you two knew Akechi, there’s a chance that you might be connected to these humans as well. He wants you to meet directly with these two humans to confirm whether or not you are connected.”

_Benham wants us to meet directly? This is going to be difficult… If Benham has us meet it’ll be hard to keep our identities a secret…_ “Why didn’t Guildmaster Raichu talk to us directly about this?”

“Benham wants to hide the fact that you guys are humans. If the town finds out, it’ll complicate things down the line, since he wasn’t upfront with it from the beginning. If you got called into the Guildmaster’s office right after the announcement that there were new humans in the world, there would be suspicion.”

“I see…” Ren responded. _So Benham wants to keep it a secret that we’re humans? He’ll probably work directly with us to keep it a secret… That’ll make it harder to hide things from him._ Either way, Ren could tell that dealing with Benham would have to be handled delicately.

* * *

Back in the palace, the phantom thieves exited the first safe room, and headed over to where the the door was, careful to remain in the blind spot of guards up on the wall. Sure enough, the gate they’d busted down the previous night was still down. _Just slide on in, and we’re golden,_ Ren thought. _Let’s see what the next part of the palace holds._ Ren snuck on in, and Akechi, Morgana, and Anya followed suit. Ren quickly bolted behind a piece of cover, only to realize that there wasn’t a single shadow in sight on the inside. He eased up a little bit, and then took in his surroundings, still careful to stay behind cover. When he looked around, he saw a number of what appeared to be sentient substitute dolls roaming around the area. They clearly weren’t shadows. _Are these supposed to be the residents of treasure town? Chatot clearly doesn’t think they’re all that important._

“Well?” Akechi questioned. “Where to next?”

“Let’s do a clean sweep of the area,” Ren responded. “We need to know the area well to plan out the day of the heist.”

With that, the phantom thieves headed around the edge of the town, and Ren made careful note of its layout. He noticed that the place seemed a little too… messy for a castle. The area he was in had banners strewn about, broken planks of wood, and smashed stones lying idly about. The buildings, now that he looked at them a little more closely, seemed in a state of disrepair. The cognitive residents seemed almost blissfully unaware of the whole thing. The place was in need of fixing, but nobody seemed to care enough to draw any attention to it. In fact, they seemed content with the whole situation.

Reaching the far part of town, Ren arrived at what seemed like the most corrupted part of town. The whole place looked abandoned, save for the lone safe room he found off in a corner, and the looming building at the end seemed to emanate pure decay. It looked as if it hadn’t been attended to at all in decades, but Ren knew that this place had to be the DHNA in the real world. _This is it? This is what Chatot thinks is the cause of all the problems in the town? That can’t be right…_

Despite his lack of being convinced, Ren proceeded into the building anyway. Inside, his suspicions were confirmed. The inside only looked just as decayed as the outside. If this was the heart of the palace, Ren would have expected it to look progressively more decayed as he went deeper into the building. Instead, it maintained a similar level of decay throughout. _This place has got to hold some kind of significance, though. What other reason could it have to look comparatively worse than the surrounding area?_

Ren proceeded up the stairwell inside, and walked down a hallway with cobblestone walls. The stones looked at once recent and weathered by time. At the very end of the hallway was a rotten wooden door. On the other side, he came across a room with an equally rotted wooden desk, and matching chairs to boot.

“What do you think this place is supposed to be?” Anya asked. “Must not be someplace that Chatot particularly likes.”

“Something happened here, I bet,” Akechi answered. “Something that Chatot really wishes didn’t happen.”

Poking around the room, Ren found a small piece of paper. It read “This deed designates Benham Pikachu as the head of the Department of housing for new arrivals.” on the top, and bore a single signature: _Guildmaster Wigglytuff._ _Benham used to run the DHNA? In that case…_ Ren’s thoughts were cut short by a sudden flash of bright light. He realized that the metaverse was suddenly changing around him, as if to show him something _. When the light faded, he saw that he was in the Guildmaster’s office, a version that looked uncorrupted by the metaverse. He saw a Pikachu, an Eevee, and a younger-looking Chatot standing in front of a very merry-looking Wigglytuff, who was sitting down on a chair that almost resembled a throne. Chatot opened his mouth to speak._

_“Surely, Guildmaster, you see the folly in this!” Chatot loudly complained. “Benham is clearly just making a grab for power here!” Apparently, the Pikachu was a much younger Benham, and the Eevee was Amity._

_“Oh?” The Wigglytuff asked. “How so?”_

_Chatot almost seemed flabbergasted. “Isn’t it obvious? He needs to form his own guild, then he can take you over! He’s selling this as a benefit, but he’s truly an usurper, grasping for power! He’s-”_

_“Chatot, please,” Benham said as he cut Chatot off. “I proposed this idea because we need a way of handling all of the Pokémon flooding the town. We can help them by building homes, and someone needs to oversee that. The Guildmaster is too caught up in his own business to handle it, so I will. Makes sense, right?”_

_“You’re just looking for power!”_

_“Chatot, I just want to help people. That’s why I joined this guild in the first place.” Benham sighed, clearly annoyed by the whole situation._

_“Chatot, why are you so opposed to building new houses?” Amity piped up. “’Mons need roofs over their heads, you know!”_

_“That’s not the issue! The issue is-“_

_The Wigglytuff cut Chatot off. “But, team flashpoint has been such a great help to the guild ever since they joined! We’d all be goners if not for them! They’re such great friends!”_

_“I-I-I...” Chatot stammered._

_“Okay!” The Wigglytuff declared. “You guys can go build the houses!” The Wigglytuff took out charcoal and paper, and began writing the very same note that Ren found on the desk. “As of today, the Department of Housing for New Arrivals is now a-go! YOOM-TAH!”_

_“Thank you, Guildmaster,” Benham responded. “We’ll get started right away. By the time we’re done, Treasure Town will be double the size!” As he said this, Benham walked over to the Guildmaster and shook his hand. Clearly, this was an official agreement._

_Off to the side, Chatot looked almost completely lost. Devastated, in fact. Like he’d lost something important to him. He fell to the ground, and just sat there for a moment. Then, without another word, he quietly left the room._

Before Ren had much time to dwell on what he just saw, the metaverse reverted into what it had been previously. The rotting room gave Ren a sudden feeling of unease, but not as much as the unease that Ren got from what he just witnessed.

“So that’s what makes this place so important to Chatot?” Morgana wondered aloud.

“It seems like the founding of the DHNA was the start of Benham’s greater influence over treasure town.” Akechi observed. “And Chatot felt threatened.”

“And that’s the reason that this whole place looks rotten. Chatot must think that Benham made the town worse by his sheer influence…” Anya observed.

“If Benham started the decline in Chatot’s eyes, then that must mean that he views the town as corrupted by Benham. Which means that the cause of the intensified distortion was Benham’s rise to power,” Ren stated. “I doubt that that mindset started with the scene we just saw though. For Chatot to already see Benham as a bad influence, there must have been something that happened in the past that put Benham on the map as a serious threat to Chatot’s power in the guild and the town. Meaning…” Ren turned to face the exit of the room. “We have more memories to dig up.” As he exited the palace that night, Ren felt that he had a pretty good idea of what those memories might be.

* * *

After taking a day off from exploring the metaverse to regain some of his energy, Ren once again dove back into Chatot’s palace with the phantom thieves. This time, the phantom thieves exited from the safe room they’d found the last time they ventured in. As Ren took in the decayed environment around him, Ren knew that the first place he had to look was the guild itself. As the focal point of what was probably most of Chatot’s life, it made sense that it would hold more memories, and, more importantly, the treasure itself. Going there was a must.

“Shall we see what’s become of the Guild?” Ren asked his teammates eagerly. “It’s the only place we really need to scope out.”

“You said it!” Morgana fired back. “Let’s get this palace done!”

As the phantom thieves approached the guild from cover, Ren noticed that this area didn’t seem decayed at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. The guild seemed almost idealized from the outside. It shone with a golden luster, and stood much prouder and taller than it did in reality. Instead of resembling a Wigglytuff, however, it instead was made to look like a Raichu. It was seemingly made to exalt Benham. _That can’t be right,_ Ren thought. _Chatot hates Benham, right?_ There weren’t any guards outside the guild itself, so Ren decided to take a risk and walk straight up to the entrance. Immediately, he heard someone shouting below him.

“Who’s there? Who’s there? It’s Ren! Proceed!”

This process repeated itself for Anya and Morgana, but not Akechi. Instead, the voice below him told him not to enter. Akechi, of course, tried anyway, but found himself blocked by a strange forcefield.

“Gah, why can’t I enter? You three got in just fine!”

“It’s probably because you’re not a guild member,” Ren responded. “Wait outside in cover. We’ll be back for you.”

“Whatever you say, Joker…” Akechi was visibly annoyed at being made to wait outside instead of exploring the deepest part of the palace with the other phantom thieves. “Make it quick, or I’ll kick your asses.”

“Sure thing, Crow,” Ren laughed, and headed down into the cognitive guild.

Immediately, it was clear that this place was only bright and shiny on the outside. On the inside, things were much different. The cobblestone walls were misshapen and covered in moss, the tiny candles dotting them struggling to illuminate the winding hallways. This place looked to be in worse condition than the DHNA, much, much worse condition. _Chatot must view the positive reputation of the guild as a façade to hide the supposed corruption going on behind closed doors._ _That’s why he’s so adamant about_ _taking over Benham’s position as Guildmaster._ There were shadows down here, but thankfully, the convenient clutter in the hallways and very poor lighting made sneaking up on and taking down the shadows one by one a cinch. It seemed almost too easy, in fact. Ren tried to ignore the gnawing gambler’s fallacy in his head, lest it ironically jeopardize the the infiltration.

After wandering around the halls for a while, Ren came to what he believed to be the mess hall. This place in particular screamed “messy.” Half-eaten food rotted all over the floors, and broken glass lay beside it. The whole room was filled with a putrid stench, and it really just made Ren uneasy in general. In the middle of the room was a table with rotting wood. Nearby, interestingly, was a lone perfect apple. Intrigued, Ren went to pick up the apple. Suddenly, he was hit with another flash of white.

_When the light receeded, Ren saw that he was back in the mess hall. He looked around, and saw the late Guildmaster Wigglytuff standing right where the apple was. It appeared to be dinner time, and the whole guild was munching away on their meal. Suddenly, the Guildmaster piped up._

_“Everyone! I’ve got an announcement to make! Tomorrow, we’re going to have a big celebration for Benham, since it’s the anniversary of him saving the world!”_

_There was whispers among the guild members, and almost everyone seemed to approve of the idea. Everyone except for, of course, Chatot. He, on the other hand, seemed quite upset about this._

_“A celebration? For Benham? Don’t you think that you’ve been giving him a little too much praise as of late?”_

_“But Chatot! He’s been such a good member of the guild!”_

_“Well, I think you’re a little too… trusting of him.”_

_A young Bidoof immediately went after Chatot for this comment. “Come on, Chatot! Benham’s a great guy! He deserves it, yup, yup! Isn’t that right, Benham?”_

_“I… uh…” Benham seemed a little lost between pride and embarrassment, and just sheepishly stared at Bidoof with an awkward smile on his face. “…I don’t know if I’m worthy of all this… hero worship?”_

_Amity, who was sitting right next to him, smiled. “You sure are my hero, Benham!”_

_The rest of the guild cheered, and then then promptly went back to eating their meal. After finishing his plate, Benham stood up and excused himself from the mess hall, but not before quickly whispering a brief ‘sorry’ into Chatot’s ear. Chatot didn’t take this too well._

_“No you’re not…” Chatot passive aggressively whispered back._

This was where the memory rather abruptly ended for Ren. It didn’t take long for the trio in the cognitive mess hall to figure out what was going on.

“That’s definitely where Chatot’s feelings towards Benham started to turn,” Morgana asserted.

“Agreed. Chatot seemed like he wasn’t vilifying Benham very much internally at all,” Ren supported. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t the last memory we have to see, though.”

“There’s probably another one at the heart of the palace, right?” Anya asked. “Maybe we’ll get just a little bit more context into Chatot’s current feelings.”

The Phantom thieves promptly left the room, and headed deeper into the palace. The rotting hallways made Ren feel uneasy, but not nearly as uneasy as he did inside the mess hall. After finding yet another safe room just outside a suspiciously large door that seemed to pulse with cognitive energy, Ren knew he was where he needed to be.

“This is it, guys. The very heart of the palace is right here.”

Ren reached out and started pushing on the door, he was greeted by yet another flash of bright white light. When it faded, Ren found himself at a rather tragic scene.

_The late guildmaster lay down on a bed in his office, with nearly half the guild surrounding him. The two closest to Wigglytuff, Benham, who was now a Raichu and Chatot, looked down at the old guildmaster with concerned expressions. This was clearly Wigglytuff’s final moments._

_“Guildmaster! Please, hang on! You’re not meant to leave this world yet!” Chatot had tears streaming down his face. Benham, by contrast, was silent, but tears were seemingly trying to fight their way out of his eyes._

_“Chatot…” Wigglytuff said._

_“Guildmaster!”_

_“Everyone…” Wigglytuff started. “I hope you all do well without me…”_

_“I swear I’ll be the best guildmaster I can be!” Chatot exclaimed. “I’ll work hard, every single day!”_

_“No, Chatot…” Wigglytuff started. “Not you… Benham…”_

_Ren watched as the color drained from Chatot’s face. “…What?”_

_“I want Benham… to be the next guildmaster…” This was all the old Wigglytuff managed to get out before finally dying. At his side, Ren saw tears start to fall down Benham’s face._

_“Everyone! I swear I’ll uphold his memory!” Benham cried out, his voice beginning to quiver._

_Chatot didn’t stick around to listen to the rest of Benham’s speech. Instead, he dashed out of the room in tears, ran all the way through town, and collapsed at the beach, breathing heavily._

_“Impossible… this can’t be… I don’t believe it… that thief… curse you…”_

As the memory faded away, Ren saw the doors he tried to open swing open. The being that greeted him on the other side could only be described as an inelegant satire. It was Benham. Cognitive Benham, not a shadow. He lay down, surrounded by a pile of food and money. His fur was messy, and he looked almost completely stupid. Beside him, a throne, also in a state of disarray, lay vacant _This is what Chatot thinks of Benham. A lazy thief who took over the town for personal gain._ Ren didn’t really know Benham well enough to say for sure, but it seemed to him that this was merely Chatot’s jealous delusion. Ren looked around the room, and just above the false throne, was a shimmering light that didn’t seem to have a form at all. Ren pointed to the light.

“That’s it, Runner. That’s what we’re going to steal. The core of the palace itself. The treasure.”

Anya seemed a little bewildered. “Wait, how are we going to steal that weird light?”

“Well, it’s formless right now. But we can make it manifest,” Ren answered. “If the palace ruler feels like there’s a very high risk to the palace, it’ll become something tangible we can steal.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Anya asked.

“We’ll send a calling card, of course!” Morgana answered. “When Chatot gets a card saying that the phantom thieves are going to steal his heart, the treasure will manifest for sure!”

“W-wait, how are we going to do that without getting caught?” Anya asked.

“Carefully,” Ren responed.

All of the preparations were finally in place. It was time to write a calling card and steal Chatot’s heart.


	11. Life will change

With just 4 days before the guild’s expedition was to commence, the phantom thieves had secured a route to the treasure. The only question remaining was to figure out how to send the calling card, and they could steal it anytime. The issue of sending the calling card was exactly why Ren had called in Akechi to the hut, which had become the de facto hideout at this point. Ren thought it best to start by designing the card itself.

“So, what should the calling card say?” Ren started. “That’s an easy place to start, right?”

“Actually,” Akechi responded, “I’ve already taken the liberty of drafting up a card, based on what you said you saw inside. Have a look.”

As he said this, Akechi took out a small red card, with the logo of the phantom thieves somewhat decently drawn in black ink on it. He then passed it over to Ren, who flipped it over and read aloud what Akechi had written on the back.

“Dear Edmont Chatot, Sinner of envy. You have flaunted your perceived power for far too long. You have done nothing but spew hatred to all those that meet you, and have brought naught but pain to those around you. We will steal your distorted desires and corrupted heart. Signed, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.” Ren looked it over, and didn’t see much wrong with it. “Seems good to me,” He confirmed.

“Alrighty then,” Morgana exclaimed. “Let’s make this a real show! How many more of these can we make by tomorrow?”

“Making this a grand debut?” Akechi asked. “I don’t about that one.” Akechi looked almost disappointed in Morgana.

“What do you mean, Akechi?” Ren asked. “Why not make this a big deal?”

“Well, first of all, we don’t know how Chatot’s going to respond. Chatot thinks he’s in a winning position, after all. He might just announce it to everyone if we try doing a public exposé. If we do it privately, there’s less risk of that happening. More importantly, however, there’s the matter of Benham. If word of this reaches his ears, do you think he’s going to hesitate to crack down on us?”

“Maybe he’ll be lenient…” Morgana started.

“Aren’t you planning on doing this again and again? Do you really think that’s going to happen?”

“No, Akechi has a point,” Ren agreed. “We don’t want to have Benham on our tails this early. Besides, what’s the point if Chatot’s reputation is already in the dirt? We’ll find a better target to do that for.”

“Making a big deal of it is more fun…” Morgana pouted.

“And that went _so_ well for you last time, didn’t it?” Akechi reminded Morgana, and by extension, Ren. It was a rather painful reminder, at that.

“In any case, we’ll have to sneak this into Chatot’s room late in the day tomorrow,” Ren said, changing the topic. “Who’s up for it?”

“I’ll do it!” Anya spoke up! “I know how to get up the cliffside!”

“Alright, then.” Ren handed the calling card to Anya, who quickly stuffed it inside her satchel. “Let’s start talking about tomorrow, then. We should probably head in from the safe room outside of the cognitive guild, since we don’t know what’ll happen if Akechi shows up in there. We’ll have to split up from there, though.”

“Why can’t we just take the treasure and leave?” Anya asked.

“Once the treasure is taken, the palace will start falling apart,” Morgana explained. “The safe rooms are gonna be the first thing to go. We’ll have to take the treasure outside of the distorted area itself in order to leave the metaverse with it.”

“Right, but why the one outside of the cognitive guild?” Akechi asked. “I think it would be better if I waited as close to the edge of the palace itself. That way, we can regroup right where the shadows would be the most concentrated. I could clear a bit of the path ahead for you.”

“That’s just gonna require that we take two trips,” Ren responded. “One to get Akechi in position and one to go inside the guild.”

“But you three could grab the treasure and run right away. That way, we’ll be more efficient than if we started from outside. Less time for Chatot’s shadow to respond.”

“Fair enough…” Morgana said.

“So, are we all aware of what has to happen?” Ren asked.

“That we are!” Morgana said.

“Yeah!” Anya said.

“Alright, everyone,” Ren said, with a bravado in his voice. “As soon as we leave the guild tomorrow, it’s showtime!”

* * *

After leaving the guild with only 3 days remaining, Anya knew that today was the day that it all went down. Which, of course meant that there was enormous pressure on her to do her part the best that she could. It wouldn’t be easy, but she knew that she could do it. As soon as she left the guild that day, she dashed down to the beach around Shadpedo Bluff. She tiptoed her way past the rocks, and looked over to where the windows of the guild were located. They were all very high up, and if she fell, she’d get seriously hurt, which wasn’t impossible, given how late it was. Getting spotted would ruin the entire operation, too. But these were risks Anya had to take to do the job properly. She’d scoped out the place earlier, and had noted Chatot’s room as being the one at the very back of the crew rooms.

“Just breathe, Anya…” She said quietly to herself, breathing in, and out. When she was ready, she looked up, and started to scale the cliffside. She gingerly navigated her way around the rocks, and after what felt like an eternity, she found herself nearby Chatot’s window. She took a moment to quietly listen, and after determining that nobody was home, she poked her head up to look. Seeing nobody, she delicately slipped through the little gap in the bars, and then took a moment to assess the room she’d found herself in. There were two little hay beds inside, as well as a small desk with a single drawer. Inside the drawer was what looked like a little orb, but Anya knew that it wasn’t any orb that she had seen before. _A personal item?_ Anya thought. _Best to just leave it be…_

She quickly took out the calling card from her satchel, and placed it down on the desk, where it would be very obvious to Chatot when he entered the room. “All right,” She whispered to herself. “Time to get out of here.” She quickly and quietly snuck out of the window, and not ten steps down the cliffside, Anya heard Chatot’s voice coming from within his room.

“What’s this now… A letter?” Anya heard Chatot muttering to himself from inside the room. She then heard a snarl. He then began to yell out the window. “IF YOU’RE OUT THERE, REN, DON’T THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH THIS! I’LL TELL EVERYONE TOMORROW NIGHT! YOU’LL BE SORRY YOU EVER DARED TO OPPOSE ME!”

_That was close!_ Anya thought. _If I didn’t sneak out when I did, he would have spotted me!_ More importantly, it seemed Akechi was right to make this sneakier. Chatot really would have spoken up if they’d plastered the job board with a whole bunch of calling cards. Anya did her best to continue sneaking down the cliffside, and finally made it back down to the beach, completely unscathed. She quickly headed back to the headquarters, where she found the other three members of the phantom thieves waiting for her.

“How did it go?” Ren asked.

“I got into his room without being noticed, and planted the calling card inside. I make sure that he noticed it, too.”

“Great to hear!” Ren exclaimed. “Well then, it’s showtime!”

As the metaverse faded in around her, Anya took in one more deep breath.

* * *

After dropping Akechi off, the other three phantom thieves headed out of the safe room, and stared down the door at the very heart of the palace itself. Ren had a twinkle in his eye, as everything he’d wanted to do again for so long was finally coming to fruition. Now, he was finally about to be a phantom thief once again. Without any further hesitation, Ren flung open the doors to the treasure room. The cognitive Benham was still asleep in the throne room, but now he was leaning up against a pedestal, as the room had changed with the appearance of the treasure. Atop the pedestal was a glass case, and inside was a crown with an emblem resembling an apple.

“There it is, guys,” Ren announced. “Let’s take this bad boy and run!”

Without any further delay, the phantom thieves scurried over to the treasure, and quickly threw off the glass case, and took the crown. Then, after very carefully sneaking their way outside of the palace, they made a break for the exit, where Akechi was waiting for them. They sprinted straight through town, and once they were at the entrance, Ren called out to Akechi.

“Akechi! We’ve got it!”

Without very much of a delay at all, Akechi sprung out of the cover he was hiding in and began to tear his way through the loose crowd of weak shadows that had huddled around the gate. He first unleased a massive _Megidolaon_ that blew back several shadows right away. He didn’t hesitate to follow up with a brutal _Riot Gun_ that picked off some of the stragglers that managed to survive the initial assault. Ren certainly appreciated Akechi’s raw power, but he new that this rampage would be cut short if Akechi ran out of energy or a more powerful set of foes showed up. For that reason, Ren knew that they had to run fast, or else this would go south quickly. Ren sprinted right into the fray, with Anya and Morgana following closely behind. Behind him, Anya and Morgana simultaneously summoned their personas and unleashed a combined _Magarudyne_ that blew any nearby shadows pretty far off. Then, all four Phantom Thieves ran towards the exit of the palace with everything that they had. At first, it seemed like they could really get away with a bold strategy like this. However, their flight was cut short by a shadow Chatot waiting for them at the exit with four Archangels by his side, ready to punish their rather presumptuous plan. Ren came to a screeching halt.

“And so, the thieves finally bring me what it is that I desire most!” Shadow Chatot declared. “The crown! Hand it over!”

As he said this, a ring of weaker shadows formed behind the phantom thieves. Ren knew that these ones were weak enough to beat down quickly, but if they did that, they’d be wasting energy that could be used towards fighting the actual threat that the 4 more powerful shadows posed. Still, Ren wasn’t giving up after coming this far. He’d put too many chips into this pot to back down now. He was going to stand his ground.

“We’re taking this treasure, no matter what happens!” He confidently declared, fully intending to win the upcoming fight.

Without hesitation, the ring of shadows behind them descended upon them, and immediately, Morgana and Anya blew them right back with another brutal _Magarudyne._ Most of the weak shadows were left scrambling after this, which just left the four guarding shadow Chatot. Akechi, however, seemed determined to keep one-upping everyone, and managed to land a _Mamudoon,_ vanquishing 3 of the 4 shadows instantly. It only took a single _Panta Rhei_ and a follow up _Eigaon_ from Ren to down the final shadow standing in the way of shadow Chatot, who seemed infuriated that they didn’t just get pinned down like the first time he’d encountered the Phantom Thieves.

“You…. MISCREANTS!” The shadow screamed, as the palace seemed to pulsate around him. “You DARE step into this domain, and make a MOCKERY of my POWER!” As he said this, Ren had a feeling about what came next. Chatot’s shadow seemed to be covered in a dark aura, it’s yellow eyes staring ahead like piercing daggers. The shadow suddenly seemed to twist and contort, it’s body releasing a horrible cracking sound. The shadows around it suddenly began to coalesce into it, and it became pitch-black as it exploded in size to tower over the Phantom Thieves. As color seemed to fade in around it, the treasure suddenly got ripped from Ren’s hands and began to float atop Shadow Chatot’s head. Then, two arms sprouted from the Shadow’s body, and raised themselves towards the crown, but did not quite reach. The wings of the shadow began to resemble that of an angel, and there were now four coming out of the back. It was a ghastly sight. “I, Bosco, shall seize this town once and for all!” It roared, seemingly trying to intimidate the Phantom thieves into backing down.

“No, Chatot!” Ren responded. “This ends tonight!”

At once, the shadow began to attack. It flapped its wings, unleashing a piercing wind that threatened to blow the phantom thieves back. Anya and Morgana barely managed to fight back, but they struggled all the same. Akechi attempted to land a _Megidolaon_ on the massive shadow, but it only seemed mildly annoyed by the attack, rather than the heavy damage Akechi had hoped for. Ren tried an _Eigaon,_ but that didn’t seem to do much either. Shadow Chatot then struck down the phantom thieves with a brutal swing of one of it’s arms, bringing it down with such force that it knocked all four back considerably. At this stage, it became clear that brute forcing their way past the shadow wouldn’t be possible. But maybe, if they just took that crown…

“Everyone!” Ren called out. “We need to get the treasure back! Can you buy me some time?”

“You better not die!” Akechi answered, unleashing a _Riot Gun_ to barely hold back the shadow as it charged them. Morgana and Anya assisted Akechi with their own power, and Anya cast a _Sukukaja_ on Ren, giving him a temporary speed boost. Ren darted around behind the shadow, and launched his grappling hook, propelling him up on the shadow’s back. From there, he climbed on up towards the head, and got on top of Shadow Chatot’s head. Then, he leaped from the head towards the crown, and snatched it out of the air, just barely managing to grab it, and jumped down, allowing himself to be caught by the other three. It took Chatot’s shadow a moment, but he seemed to realize what happened.

“You! No… No… NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!” It roared, as it collapsed into its smaller form.

“Sorry, Chatot,” Ren said. “The show’s over for you.”

Shadow Chatot looked up, as Ren and the other Phantom thieves walked past him in the now ruined landscape. “Everything I was… Everything I had… It’s all over…”

At this point, Anya turned around to face the defeated shadow, and seemed to have a somber look in her eyes.

“Chatot… You were scared, weren’t you?” She finally said.

Shadow Chatot turned to Anya. “…What?”

“Ever since Wigglytuff passed, things just haven’t been the same, haven’t they? Benham got stronger and stronger, and you got weaker and weaker. You were are afraid that if you acknowledged him, nobody would see you as powerful anymore, weren’t you?”

Chatot looked down in shame. It seemed Anya’s words rang true.

“If I’m right about that, then can you promise me something?”

Chatot looked back up. “…What is it?”

“Go apologize to Benham. And face the world instead of running away from it. Can you do that for me?”

“Okay…” As it uttered this single word, Chatot’s shadow disappeared into white light. At this point, the palace truly began to crumble around the phantom thieves. Ren put his hand on Anya’s shoulder.

“Come on, Runner. Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

In his office, Benham was busy making preparations to head out on the expedition in only two days. He diligently looked over the route they had planned on taking, as well as all of the teams which they planned on taking on the expedition. At this point, everything was looking to fall into place. “All right,” Benham said to himself. “This is gonna be good.”

Amity perked up. “Everything good?”

“Sure is,” Benham said with a smile. “I’ve got it all figured out. We’re set to announce all of the teams tomorrow.”

“And those are?” Amity asked eagerly.

“First of all, like I said, we’re bringing team shadows to meet with the two other humans. We need to figure out if these humans are connected to the ones that came to treasure town, so bringing them is a must. Besides, they should be at least a little bit familiar with the route we’re taking, since it coincides a little bit with the route they claimed to take. Next up…” Benham took out two sheets of paper with the faces of Bidoof and Loudred on them and brief inscriptions and data regarding both. “Bidoof and Loudred. They were assigned to explore the area of the route earlier in the moon, so they should have some familiarity with the whole place.” Benham went about listing teams and individuals that he felt would be worthwhile assets on the journey. “You see anything wrong with this list, Amity?” He asked.

Amity asked a few questions about certain members for a bit, but overall seemed okay with the list. “Looks okay to me! And you’re going too?”

“Indeed. I need to be there to talk to and negotiate with King Diego in case something is very wrong, and I also need to be there to talk to the humans directly. Of course, that means you’re going to stay behind at the guild to keep things running properly. Can I entrust this to you?”

“Sure can!”

“Alrighty then…” Benham put away the massive stack of papers he had pulled out, and then pulled out a map. “We’ll be taking a route along the northern part of the grass continent. It’ll take four days to make the whole journey, but it means avoiding the massive mountain ranges that run across the continent. We’re not going to try dealing with all that when handling such a large crowd. Additionally, we’ll be splitting into teams of six, so we can move more quickly. This way, everyone will be well coordinated and nobody will be separated from a larger pack. We’ll be assigning a special waypoint once we arrive, so if anyone collapses, they can be taken to High Town more efficiently.”

“Is that everything?”

“Yes. If it all goes smoothly, I can arrange Ren and Morgana to meet with the humans discreetly without the rest of the guild finding out, and I may even be able to convince King Diego to let me take the humans back with me.”

“Speaking of that… Do you think that Ren-“

Amity didn’t get to finish that thought. Instead, Chatot came bursting through the doors to the Guildmaster’s office, breaking the atmosphere in the room rather abruptly. Benham could tell that something was different this time. Chatot’s eyes seemed to tear up a little, and they looked like they could go flooding down his face at any moment. Chatot clearly had something important to say.

“B-Benham!” He exclaimed.

“Yes, Chatot?” Benham was intrigued, to say the least.

“I… I… I… I’m so sorry!” Chatot threw himself to the floor as he said this. “I’ve treated you like garbage, the guild like garbage, all to fuel my own ego! I envied being Guildmaster so badly, you must hate me for it! I-“

Benham was instantly overcome with emotions. Finally, after all of these years, Chatot wanted to turn over a new leaf with him. He got up from his desk, and ran straight over to Chatot, and hugged him. He felt tears streaming down his face as he did this. “I never hated you, Chatot.”

Chatot almost seemed like he couldn’t accept Benham’s acceptance of him “How? How could you possibly forgive me so easily?”

“I wasn’t angry with you in the slightest… I was only sad… because I never got to properly be friends with you. I’m so happy that you’re here now…”

Chatot started sobbing in Benham’s arms, which seemed to come from a place of total joy. Benham himself was truly happy with this development, after Chatot had done nothing but express hatred towards him for so long.

When Chatot finally stopped crying, he drew away from Benham for a moment, and then reached into his bag. From it, he pulled out a small, dark green pearl. _A defend globe?_ Benham thought. _Why does he have this?_

“This belonged to Wigglytuff…” Chatot said. “I’ve put off telling anyone he had this for a while, but now, I think you’d better have it. It apparently belonged to a good friend of his when he was young.” Chatot raised the defend globe up to Benham, seemingly wanting him to accept it.

Benham accepted the defend globe, and held it up to look at it for a few seconds. “I’ll be sure to keep this safe,” he said. Then, he delicately placed it down in a drawer where all of his most important personal belongings were stored. “Thank you, Chatot.”

Chatot seemed to tear up all over again. “Thank you, Benham.” After saying this, Chatot finally left the room for the night. Benham wasn’t expecting to get so emotional tonight, but it was more than welcome.


	12. Another episode

Two days after stealing Chatot’s heart, Ren got up bright and early. Today was the day that the expedition started, and he was personally very excited to see another part of the world, as well as potentially reuniting with some of the phantom thieves after well over two years at this point. It had been about a month since he first came to the world of Pokémon, and now he finally had an opportunity to really assemble the phantom thieves. Doing so while Benham was watching their conversations would be difficult, but Ren could always use the metaverse if he wanted to guarantee that Benham didn’t hear something. It was for that very reason that he chose to bring the meta-nav with him. Until then, he’d just need to lay low. After he had a quick breakfast in the hut, as Ren walked right down to the beach with Anya and Morgana by his side, he could feel the anticipation in the air. He saw Benham, Loudred, and Bibarel all gathered there waiting for Team shadows to arrive. Benham had the whole guild split up into groups to make it easier to manage, and left it to the teams to pick a time to leave. Benham had asked Team Shadows, along with Bibarel and Loudred, to accompany him personally early in the morning. Benham spotted the trio approaching him, and waved.

“There you are!” He called out to them. “All prepared to head out?”

“Sure are!” Ren responded. “It’s showtime, right?”

“Indeed. Let’s go!”

With that, the team of six headed out on the expedition to High Town. They had quite the journey ahead of themselves, so it didn’t take long for the odd conversation to pop up during their travels.

“You know…” Loudred started. “It’s really weird that you have me with the guys that socked me in the back of the head, Guildmaster.”

“That was a while ago, wasn’t it?” Benham asked. “I think you should be over that by now, so what’s the problem?”

“It’s not that I’m not over it by now…” Loudred replied. “It’s just… awkward. I never properly made peace with them, you know?”

Anya piped up. “I will agree that it’s a little bit weird that you have us travelling together, Guildmaster…”

“That reminds me,” Ren interjected. “Why’d you bring us all along, anyway?” Ren knew that he was putting Benham in a bit of a difficult spot with this question, but he was hoping to see what Benham’s reasoning was for the other members of the guild.

“Well,” Benham started. “As for the expedition in general, everyone here was chosen because they knew the general area of the route a little bit better than everyone else, given you’d been along it previously.”

“So we’re on the expedition because of the route?” Something about this seemed a little odd to Ren “So, uh, why are we all with you, then?”

“Well, I…” Benham, for the first time Ren had met him, didn’t seem to immediately have an answer prepared. Morgana decided to interrupt.

“Did you just want us to make up?” He asked.

“…Yes.” Benham admitted. He seemed almost embarrassed to do so.

“…Oh! I… phtshzf…” Ren trailed off, not realizing the ridiculous noise he just made. “Sorry for knocking your lights out, Loudred.”

“Sorry for chasing Anya around the forest…” Loudred said in turn.

“Golly!” Bibarel laughed. “This sure is awkward…”

Anya and Morgana laughed right along with him. Loudred seemed annoyed by this.

“When did you three get all buddy-buddy?” He asked.

The next day or so continued without much else of note happening. The group ventured on right along a path that more or less resembled the path that Ren, Morgana, and Anya had originally taken to get to treasure town. Ren even managed to recognize a handful of landmarks that he’d spotted on his journey a month ago, and now he felt almost nostalgic about it. Team shadows had already come so far since they’d originally set out so long ago. They’d climbed up the ranks of the guild a fair bit, performed their first act as the phantom thieves in two years, and even reunited with someone who Ren thought was long gone. Ren couldn’t help but wonder what Akechi was doing right now. No doubt, he was pretty bored without his access to the metaverse. Ren would probably have to reintroduce whoever was in High Town to Akechi once they returned. That would be… fun. Regardless, finding out who exactly was in high town was most important.

After making their way though a mystery dungeon where Benham proved to be a far more capable fighter than Ren had ever thought to give him credit for, Ren noticed that Benham seemed a little concerned about something. “Guildmaster Raichu?” He asked. “Is something the matter?”

Benham turned to Ren with a concerned look, and then looked straight forward. They were in an open field that stretched out quite far, so Ren didn’t think that he was looking at anything in particular. Clearly, something was up, but Ren waited for Benham to give a response. After what seemed like an eternity, Benham finally turned to them to speak.

“I would like to discuss something confidential with you all. Do you swear that you will tell absolutely nobody about what we’ve discussed here today?”

“Sure thing, Guildmaster!” Bibarel confirmed. “Won’t tell a soul!”

“All right.” Benham took a deep breath. “This is only a revelation to Loudred and Bibarel, but first of all, I would like to disclose to you all that Ren and Morgana are humans.”

Loudred and Bibarel seemed shocked. “IS THAT TRUE, GUILDMASTER?” Loudred responded with a roar. Thankfully, nobody was around to hear it, but Ren was more surprised that Benham was choosing to reveal this now. “That’s true, but why are you telling them now?” He asked accordingly.

“Well, the reason for that is, as you no doubt were told of by Amity by now, I would like to stage a meeting between you two and these two new humans in high town. We could learn something valuable. At the same time, however, I don’t want to reveal to anyone unnecessary that Ren and Morgana are human. Do you know why that is?”

Loudred spoke up. “Humans, including yourself, have been connected to preventing wide-scale calamities in the past. If the town learned that Ren and Morgana were human, it would spark wild speculation, as well as making it harder for the guild to operate effectively.”

“That was the initial reasoning for keeping their identities a secret, yes. But the situation in High Town has complicated things massively. According to the initial letter I received from king Diego, these humans were open to everyone around them about being humans, and it caused a bit of a panic. At the moment, it’s given me an opportunity to let Treasure town hold it’s breath for news about humans, but it’s also forced me to play my cards delicately. If King Diego finds out that Ren and Morgana are humans, there’s a realistic chance it’ll cause tensions between us and High Town. He may believe that the humans belong with him, and try to use access to High Town as a bargaining chip to get it.”

“That guy’s so full of himself…” Bibarel lamented. “He thinks he can just do what he wants.”

“Yes. Grievances about King Diego’s attitude aside, I can’t afford anyone knowing about Ren and Morgana, lest it reach his ears. It doesn’t seem like it’ll be possible to prevent everyone from knowing about the meetings, given King Diego’s tendency towards oversight. So in order to stage a meeting between all of the humans without arousing any suspicion, I need someone else to either go into the meeting with Ren and Morgana so that outsiders who don’t hear what goes on don’t get suspicious, or to put Ren and Morgana up to it so it looks unplanned from the outside. Of course, nobody will see the meeting itself, but most of the expedition will probably see that there was a meeting. Does that sound good to you?”

“You can count on me, Guildmaster!” Loudred and Bibarel seemed up to the task.

* * *

Now a few days later, Benham was feeling a little optimistic. Loudred and Bibarel seemed to agree to keep the secret, and also seemed to understand the plan a bit better. Essentially, they would listen in on a meeting between Ren, Morgana, and the other humans, mediated by Benham, in order to make it look like the people in the meeting were only there for backup. Nobody who didn’t hear the topics of discussion would be able to guess that Ren and Morgana were human. _Everything should go smoothly,_ Benham thought. _I can’t see a reason Ren and Morgana would lie._

Benham looked back at team shadows. They were having a little bit of idle chatter with Loudred and Bibarel about their past experiences. Whatever ill will between them had faded over the course of their little journey together.

“You guys really had all of your houses packed into small places? Sounds like you’d never escape your neighbors!” Loudred exclaimed.

“Are you kidding?” Ren responded. “We got tiny rooms all crammed into one building!”

“Golly…” Bibarel muttered. He seemed bewildered by all of this talk of human houses. To Benham, it made some sense, given that he grew up in a dam.

“You all getting along back there?” Benham asked.

“Is something wrong, Guildmaster?” Anya asked in return.

“No, just making sure there isn’t a problem,” Benham reassured. “I’d like you to ideally all be on the same page by the time we reach high town.”

As Benham looked back to the path, he realized that they were finally reaching the first major divergence from the path that they had all taken previously. Hollow mountain. It was an… odd place. Nobody seemed to live there, despite the presence of a mystery dungeon. It possessed an unusual number of natural resources, such as berries, minerals, and other goodies, which had led Benham to think that it would be a suitable place to start some kind of mining operation, and he’d made plans to do so after sending Bibarel and Loudred to scope out the area. That was until he learned that, apparently, there was a family of Absols living on the mountain when the older daughter of the family came to visit Treasure Town just before Team Shadows first arrived. More interestingly, when Benham questioned Bibarel and Loudred about the family of Absols, they claimed to have never seen anything of the sort. This confused Benham at the time, and he was preoccupied with preparing for Ren and Morgana so he could interrogate them, so he hadn’t really given it much thought before now. Still, Benham didn’t think it could be anything too significant. It was more likely, in his mind, that they had just travelled there from elsewhere. Still, Benham wanted to meet with them to be absolutely sure about that. Benham turned to the other five with him.

“We’re coming up on the first major split from the path, everyone. After leaving here, we’re heading due east to make out way straight to high town. Do I make myself clear?”

The other five nodded in confirmation. Ren decided to speak up. “Is this the mountain where that family of Absols lives?”

“You know about the Absols living here, Ren?” Benham asked.

“Yeah,” Ren confirmed. “We met them while on our way down to treasure town. They seem like a nice bunch.”

Benham turned to Loudred and Bibarel. “Loudred. Bibarel. You’re absolutely sure that you never saw hide or hair of this absol family?”

“Positive!” Loudred said back. “And I- wait a minute, Ren! You said you SAW them?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, I didn’t!” Loudred seemed to be getting agitated. “There’s no absols up there!”

“Calm down, Loudred. You probably just missed them as you were travelling,” Benham asserted.

Bibarel spoke up with a nervous tone. “…I don’t think we could’ve missed ‘em, Guildmaster…”

“Relax. We’ll be able to make sure of it once we actually ask these absols what the deal is. We just need to ask the right questions.”

As Benham walked up the path leading up the mountain, he noticed that some of the trees lining it didn’t have any berries on them whatsoever. Benham made note of the fact that almost all of the trees that lacked berries were oran trees, which should be growing lots this time of year. _That’s a sign that they’ve been harvested recently. It seems that someone’s here, after all._ As he continued walking, he noticed that the areas around the trees had a dirt trail. Around the entrance to the mystery dungeon near the end of the trail leading up the mountain, the group had yet to spot anyone around.

“See?” Loudred piped up. “There isn’t a soul around! Nobody! Nope! Nothing! Totally abandoned.” He seemed to say this with absolute confidence, as if there wasn’t a way that he could possibly be wrong about this. Unfortunately for loudred, the universe tends not to be kind to the cocky and arrogant. Seconds later, Benham heard a voice that didn’t belong to anyone in the group. “Are you sure about that? I’ve been here for a while now.”

Benham turned to the source of the voice. It was an older Absol Man, who was looking at them with a friendly, but strangely disappointed smile. “You know, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t ignore me so much, you.” He was addressing Loudred as he said this, apparently.

“Wha- Who are you?” Loudred seemed angry, even offended, that he was wrong.

The absol man sighed. “The name’s Tomohisa. I’m the guy you walked right on by like he didn’t exist last time you came here, and I was hoping you would actually notice me this time. Pleasure to finally meet you.” He seemed like he was trying to say something along the lines of ‘I told you so’.

Benham approached Tomohisa. “Guildmaster Benham Raichu of Treasure Town. Pleasure to meet you.” Benham had more than a few questions for the Absol man. “If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been living on this mountain?”

“We’ve been here for a while now.” Tomohisa responded. “Kids!” He called out. “We’ve got visitors!”

First, a very young Absol boy came bounding around the corner, and wasted no time bombarding Benham with a barrage of questions.

“Who are you? Where are you from? Why are big and stinky? Wha-“

“Tatsuya, calm down!” Tomohisa attempted to wrangle his child, and after doing so, the boy just kept bouncing in place at his side. “Every time with this child, I swear…”

Right behind Tatsuya, a much older, seemingly around Ren and Morgana’s age, Absol girl timidly walked up to Benham. “H-Hi sir, my name’s Madoka…”

Benham realized that this must have been the young girl that had been in treasure town. “Are you the one who travelled all the way from here to Treasure Town? You’re a resourceful one for making the journey by yourself, you know!”

“Thank you…” Madoka seemed almost distant. She looked down at the ground next to her, as if she was seeing things that weren’t there. Benham wasn’t sure if she was a good candidate for joining the guild, so he wasn’t about to extend the offer, but he was impressed by her abilities nevertheless. Tomohisa seemed like he was happy to have his kids meet these strangers.

“Would you six be open to having dinner with us? We’d like the company!”

* * *

Meals with whoever happened to be passing by had become a pretty common occurrence for Madoka and her family. Her father didn’t seem to mind offering his hospitality to anyone who happened upon their little corner of the world, but Madoka always felt just a little nervous when random people just showed up at the dinner table. And who could blame her? She didn’t know these people! They could be murderers, for all Dad knew! Regardless, she was powerless to stop it beyond her mother finally deciding to put her foot down on the whole thing. Madoka was shocked that hadn’t happened yet. Having finished her meal, she excused herself, and headed back to the house. To her surprise, one of the guests called out to her.

“Madoka, was it?” Madoka turned back to look at who called her. Ren Zorua, who had apparently already met the rest of the family while Madoka was in treasure town, had seemingly taken an interest in her over dinner. Madoka wanted nothing to do with it. “Yes?”

“I’m sure we’ll meet again!” Ren said this with a bravado that made Madoka think he was trying to flirt with her. Madoka gave no response and simply walked back to the house she’d taken up residence in without saying anything. Once inside, she headed straight to her room and laid down on her bed. She sighed, wondering how long this little dance would go on for. Meanwhile, the weird white-furred, long eared, cat thing she was far more familiar with than she’d liked jumped down from her neck and sat down on the floor in front of her, it’s beady red eyes staring directly into her soul. Madoka had gotten used to it watching her sleep, but she’d much rather pretend it didn’t exist. Normally, that wasn’t a problem, since it was invisible and inaudible to everyone but her, and wasn’t even around half the time, but when they were alone, it was much harder to ignore. Eventually, she relented and decided to talk to it.

“You know, Kyubey, it would really help if you didn’t weigh down my neck like that.”

“If I didn’t do that, you would most likely close the door on me.”

“You can teleport.”

“That costs energy.”

Madoka sighed. There was no winning with Kyubey. It was always prepared with some rationalization that “debunked” her attempts to reason with it. Kyubey was a selfish, purely logical being that left no room for emotions or empathy. ‘Logical’ usually meant “I’m right, you’re wrong” with it. Perhaps that lack of emotion was why it was willing to commit the horrible atrocities it did, including this latest one. Back in the human world, Madoka’s life had been normal up until about 3 months before current events. Then, she met Kyubey, who offered her a single, all-powerful wish, in exchange for becoming one of his magical girls and a life fighting witches, powerful, evil entities that secretly spread despair and cursed humans. It was all a lie, of course. Madoka’s body was made into a lifeless puppet without her realizing, while her true form was a soul gem, and she’d die if it ever became damaged. As magical girls, they were heavily incentivized to fight amongst each other, as the grief seeds needed to purify their soul gems and continue fighting only came after slaying a witch, and only one appeared per witch. The familiars, the beings that could be considered developing witches, did not drop soul gems, so they were also incentivized to allow innocents to die so they could kill the more powerful witches. This was made even worse by the fact that it could be hard to tell immediately whether they were fighting a witch or a familiar. The wishes themselves had a tendency to backfire on the magical girls, making it easier to fall prey to a corrupted soul gem. The very worst of all, however, was the fact that the only reason the witches and familiars existed in the first place was because they were magical girls whose soul gems had become corrupted. Unless she died first, Madoka and every other magical girl was doomed to become a witch. All of this was by Kyubey’s design, of course. For that reason, in her final moments, Madoka did something horribly selfish, something she now regretted. Her friend, Homura Akemi, was capable going back in time. In her final moments, as Madoka and Homura slipped into despair, Madoka used her last grief seed to purify Homura’s soul gem, and asked Homura to stop her from falling prey to Kyubey’s schemes, and to kill her before she became a witch. Now, Madoka could only wonder where she was now. Currently, Madoka had been brought back to life to participate in Kyubey’s little experiment for an obvious cruel reason.

“You know, Madoka, I need you to hurry up and make a contract with me. Especially since your potential is so much higher than it was previously.”

“If I did that, I’d be doomed to become the nastiest witch ever.”

“I need to run the experiment, Madoka.”

“The answer is no.”

According to Kyubey, the reason Madoka wasn’t a magical girl anymore was because her potential was markedly higher than when she was alive. Kyubey expected her to make another contract so he could get the oh-so-precious energy it wanted that it harvested when a new witch was born. It couldn’t seem to comprehend why she would prioritize her own well-being over contributing to Kyubey’s little hedge fund.

“You’re being very irrational. If you don’t make a contract, how will you fight the other participants of the experiment?”

“I don’t want to go around fighting other magical girls, Kyubey.”

“Oh, you won’t be fighting magical girls.”

Madoka was confused. “Wait, what? Who would I even be fighting, then?”

“You’re supposed to be fighting the humans who made contracts with an entity other than we incubators. We arranged for him to send some of those humans to this world, and we sent some of our magical girls. The idea is to compare the performances of both groups by having them compete directly.”

“I should go make a contract with the other guy. Can’t be much worse then you.”

“Well, both methods seem to have their own drawbacks. It’s still all emotional energy. He just handles things differently.”

“Is that so…” Madoka closed her eyes, already tired of the conversation. It didn’t take long for her to slip into a deep sleep. The world of her dreams was usually occupied by all kinds of distant fantasies, so it felt nice to just go to sleep and dream. This time, however, Madoka didn’t find herself in some pleasant dream. Instead, she found herself in a field of velvet flowers, with a matching velvet sky, contrasting the white clouds. In the very center of the field was a long-nosed man sitting down at a desk.

“Greetings, guest. Welcome to the Velvet Room. Please, take a seat.”

Madoka, still thinking this was a weird dream, went ahead and sat down in the chair opposite to the strange man. The man continued talking as he took out a deck of tarot cards, and laid them out on the desk. “My name is Igor, the proprietor of this place. This place exists between mind and matter, dream and reality. And you, Madoka Kaname… You’ve found yourself in a predicament, haven’t you?”

Madoka sighed, and looked down. “I want to help so badly… but if I make a contract with Kyubey, I’ll hurt everyone instead.”

“And the matter of Kyubey is precisely why I chose to have you visit me tonight, Madoka. You see, I am the one Kyubey is playing this game with.”

It suddenly dawned on Madoka that this was more than some dream. “So this is all some game to you?”

“Life is a game, I’m afraid. Fear not, Madoka. I mean no harm to you, unlike the cruel incubators. In fact, you could say I want to help you out.”

“…You want to make a contract with me.”

“Precisely. Now then, Madoka, if you accept my offer, I will give you the same power that I gave to the other humans I’ve made contracts with. You’ll need to undergo a bit of a trial, though. You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Wait, how do I know I can trust you? You could just be lying that you’re not going to try anything with me!”

Fog began to fade into the area. “Let’s just say that there’s more to witches than you know.”

“Wait-“ Before Madoka could finish what she was saying, the fog completely enveloped her, and at once she awoke in her bed. This time, however, something was different. At her side was a funny-looking stone tablet bearing a strange symbol at the top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this was a triple crossover with madoka magica this entire time. W-wait, no don't leave-


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